


Rewards of Theft and Other Schemes

by leoandlancer



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Everybody Lives, Fights and violence, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Mission Fic, Mutual Pining, story heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 22:17:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9092908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandlancer/pseuds/leoandlancer
Summary: The morning after their argument, McCree doesn’t meet Hanzo for training. In fact, he isn’t even at Watchpoint Gibraltar.The abrupt disappearance drives Hanzo to take up the search alone, annoyed by his own concern. However, his discovery that McCree has apparently defected to rejoin his old gang forces Overwatch to mobilize against their former friend. Positive that McCree was taken against his will and is in real danger, and now desperate to protect him, Hanzo takes a small team to rescue McCree before he’s killed, either by the Deadlock Gang, or Overwatch.A story in which: Genji is amazed by, and hugely supportive of, his big brothers very first crush. Hanzo is disgusted that Genji is so blind to assume his irritation with McCree is a crush. Reaper is a shit. McCree is a lot smarter than people think he is. Winston is sad as hell but makes rational decisions. Hanzo doesn’t know he’s in love and does not make rational decisions. McCree is astonished that Hanzo actually followed him all the way into hell to pull him out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My submission to the Overwatch Big Bang 2016! This fic was super fun to write and got away from me really fast. Thank you for checking it out, and I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> My amazing beta reader was Windlion and Daishar was the one who was capable of convincing me to keep writing even when I was certain this was never getting done. Thank you to both of you, ♡(ŐωŐ人)
> 
> The artist who chose my summary was Jamiekinosian (on Tumblr! http://jamiekinosian.tumblr.com/ !), who was extremely patient with me and this fic. Her artwork graces in the climax in chapter 5. Thank you for being a rockstar. You're so super cool.

McCree vanished quietly one night. He didn't stop to pack a bag, or write a note, or say good bye. He simply a terrified, furious, uncharacteristically talkative man one evening, and then he was gone hours later. 

The sun rose through a glowing yellow and orange haze of clouds over the Mediterranean. Hanzo watched it, sitting under the tree at the headland of the Watchpoint, patiently waiting. He'd been waiting for hours now. It was cold, the hour before dawn was always so cold, but Hanzo stubborn and sure. He’d settled down in dewy grass, looking out at the grey line of light on the eastern horizon and thought about what he would say when McCree would come to find him. McCree would always come to find him. The sun crept up through the morning mist, huge on the horizon, and Hanzo closed his eyes as the light grew. 

Hanzo waited. 

They'd fought here, hours before under the stars as a breeze rustled through the leaves of McCree’s favorite tree. Hanzo had felt the argument like a wedge between him, each word a hammer blow that drove them further and irrevocably apart. He’d told himself at he time that was a good thing. That however he felt about McCree wasn’t worth keeping, wasn’t reciprocated, and could only hurt them in their line of work. He hadn’t done anything he’d wanted to, or said anything he’d wanted to say.

Hanzo had been  _ stupid _ . Hanzo should have said something, needed to tell the idiotic, over zealous, infuriatingly hot headed outlaw  _ something _ .

A season. He’d said he would be here for a season. Genji had told him to choose a side and Hanzo had followed him to Overwatch temporarily. Nothing could have prepared him for Overwatch. Nothing had prepared him for the challenge of filling in among their exceptional abilities or powers. Nothing, in all his travels, had prepared him for McCree. Hanzo had at first accepted McCree's company grudgingly, then inviting it, and finally, realizing he enjoyed it. They’d sat together here one morning, in the midwinter when they’d both been bundled up, and watched the sunrise. Hanzo had looked at McCree sitting peacefully with his hat tipped back and a gentle little smile on his face as he looked out at the sunrise and felt the quiet, familiar warmth and … Then he realized, and his chest was suddenly tight with panic. 

Oh no, he’d thought, staring at McCree under the morning sky. Oh no this can’t be real. 

Finally, the sun pulled itself off the horizon with a jerk, the mist burned away, and Hanzo opened his eyes when the sun was a full hand's breadth above the horizon. 

McCree hadn't come for him. 

Hanzo climbed slowly to his feet. Suddenly the sleep he’d missed slammed into him all at once, and he felt weak and sore. He'd needed to speak to McCree. Needed him to know... There was a sound on the path to the headland, and Hanzo turned, waiting. 

"Hanzo, there you are love." 

Lena, flickered from the crest of the path towards him in a blue streak. With poor grace, Hanzo contained himself, and managed to turn his disappointment from a scowl into a frown. He realized he'd been holding his breath and let it out with an irritated little huff.

"McCree with you?" 

Hanzo discovered he couldn't draw his next breath. He shook his head. 

Lena's bright, only slightly anxious face fell, "He's usually with you." 

McCree hadn’t been spending that much time with him, surely. "He's not here." 

"Then he's not anywhere," Lena's usual cheer was gone now. She was watching him. "He's gone." 

Hanzo swallowed, his mouth was dry. Stupid, childish, unworthy anxiety knotted cold and hard in his stomach. McCree's words last night ringing in his ears. 

"Gone," Hanzo spoke so softly he could hardly hear himself. 

Lean nodded, "Athena can't find him, his tracker's in his locker. Bed's unmade, but that's not unusual. We've searched the rest of the watchpoint and he's not here and… Hanzo?" 

Hanzo blinked. Lena was looking at him in some alarm. 

"Love,” She said gently, “You've gone white as a ghost." 

With an effort, Hanzo sharply pulled himself together. He forced himself to speak, if only to distract Lena from studying him more closely. "We fought last night, he may have gone to clear his head."

Lena opened her mouth, shut it again and disappeared in a blue flicker. She was back at the top of the path down the hillside. "I'll let Winston know." 

In what seemed an uncharacteristic display of respect, deference and compassion, she left him alone. 

Hanzo swallowed hard again, warring to keep himself in check. The dragons, never far away, snarled and chafed under his skin, making him burn and itch with unused power. They felt his fear as anger, and were ready to answer. He fought to control himself. He had to be careful. They felt everything as anger. 

At length, he uncurled one fist, and pressed his palm to the freshly notched trunk of McCree’s tree. 

McCree had taken the arrow.

 

* * *

The warm silence of Hanzo’s little room broke disastrously at 2:30am. Dragging himself out of the first decent night’s sleep in a while and into a righteous fury, Hanzo glared the comm. McCree. Only McCree would wake him in the dead of night, confident that Hanzo wouldn’t kill him. It was an unfounded confidence.  Hanzo’s composure could only stretch so far and wouldn’t extend, in this case, to politeness. 

“What?” Hanzo growled at his comm. 

“Come up to the headland,” McCree’s voice was soft, but perfectly alert, damn him. “Gotta ask you something.” 

“Later,” Hanzo went to hang up but McCree cut him off. Something that had never, in the months Hanzo had known McCree to ever happen. 

“Now,” McCree snapped.

They both went silent, then McCree seemed to remember himself.

“Please. I’m not asking for my own amusement, Sunshine.” 

Hanzo growled, and hung up. He’d told McCree to call him Hanzo, and he had--for a week or two. Why would the horrible gunslinger be calling him out of his bed in the dead of night now? He pulled himself out of bed anyway.  

Nobody, Hanzo reflected as he dragged his clothing into place, could prompt him to get out of the first bed he’d slept in for over a week except McCree. He pulled his hair back scowling and tied his scarf into place. McCree had a knack for cultivating indulgences in others for him. Hanzo had been certain he’d been immune and yet here he was.  

The moon was well up when Hanzo reached the little bowl of juniper and grass on the headland above Gibraltar. McCree was waiting under his tree with hands arms crossed under his serape, standing more still than Hanzo had seen before. He barely seemed to be breathing.

"Why did you call me up here?" Hanzo kept his voice cold. 

McCree turned slightly, and whatever Hanzo had expected to hear, what followed wasn’t it. 

"You ever seen a horse struck by lightning?”

That brought Hanzo up short. So much about McCree brough Hanzo up short. But McCree apparently didn’t need an answer from him. 

“It ain’t pretty, storms blow up fast too, where I’m from. Sometimes you don’t get a chance to do anything, can’t get out of the way of the thing, ” McCree went on. He was still standing so still it was unnerving. “I think... Sunshine, Overwatch is in the way of one  _ hell  _ of a storm.” 

Hanzo tried to carefully keep himself as dispassionate as he could around McCree. It was a self taught survival skill born of obsession. Everything about the man from his belt-buckle to his manners to his sweetly unaffected affection prompted a reaction that Hanzo needed to suppress. This time he just blinked, took a breath and waited for McCree to make sense. He usually did if you gave him time. Then Hanzo realized he was mimicking McCree’s flatly motionless poise, and forced himself to relax with a huff.

"Go to Winston with your wild ideas," Hanzo was ready to turn and head straight back down the mountainside, but McCree turned, quick as a snake, and caught his arm. 

"He can't know," McCree snapped. His hand tightened, a little . 

The tone brought Hanzo up short. More than the metal hand around his arm could, or the odd tension in McCree’s shoulders.

"I need your help, Sunshine," McCree seemed to realize he was holding Hanzo's arm and let go abruptly, almost flinching away. "Winston, the other veterans can't know, and the new recruits wouldn't hear of it." 

"Nor will I," Hanzo replied, as curtly as he could manage. Whatever had shaken up McCree, made him stand flat still and call Hanzo out of bed, it had to be brought to someone else. Someone who could deal with McCree impartially. 

"Sunshine please," McCree pulled his hat off and shoved one hand through his hair. Then instead of putting his hat back on, he held it at his side. "I don't got much time." 

"Tell me then," Hanzo crossed his arms. "Convince me." 

"I can't," McCree shook his head briefly, “Not here. I can if you come, if you follow me. I can’t explain now.” 

Hanzo hadn't seen McCree like this. Taut and angry, he seemed somehow smaller like this, coiled in on himself. He had never thought it would ever be necessary to comfort McCree, but suddenly Hanzo wanted to. He stiffened at the very thought. 

"Then it can hardly be my concern." 

"Damn," McCree snarled and ducked his head, pushing his hat on his head, and hiding his face under the brim. "Hanzo, I don't want to do this alone." 

"Tell the others then," Hanzo crossed his arms. He’d caught it when McCree called him by name again. McCree only dropped his stupid nicknames in fights, and only if they were going badly. Hanzo stifled the insane urge to reach out and pull that hat away, look at McCree in the eye again, make him explain what was frightening him. His own stupid impulses infuriated him. "Tell me now if you think that would persuade me. But if you only have wild thoughts and childish fears, bring them elsewhere." 

"I can't," McCree growled, and again, there was tension in the hunch of his shoulders, drawing in on himself. 

Guilt, Hanzo recognized suddenly. Guilt and fear. He narrowed his eyes, "Whatever you did, I won't allow you to make it my problem." 

"I didn't do anything. Hanzo, I swear, please if you care at all," McCree stopped himself and went still and tense again. He looked straight up at Hanzo and his face went from pleading to blank in the moonlight. “Damn.” He said quietly. For an instant his expression flicked to fury, or revulsion. 

Hanzo felt the hair on the back of his neck rise suddenly. Under his skin, the dragon’s woke and moved into easy readiness. McCree’s eyes were bright in the shadow of his hat brim, and something about the glint on his teeth when he spoke set Hanzo on edge.

"Damn you guessed it right there," McCree spoke softly, too quietly for someone usually so at ease with talking and laughing. "Partly is my fault, but I'm the only one who can make it right. I don't want to do it alone, I need your help." 

Hanzo didn't reply; he kept his hands to himself and watched McCree, knowing he would break this silence first: he always had. 

McCree opened his mouth, looking placating or even apologetic, and for a second Hanzo thought everything was going back to normal. That McCree could apologize and call him Sunshine and shake his head in embarrassment for calling him up but wasn’t it a nice night for it anyway. Hanzo could accept that. He was looking forward to it. 

Instead, McCree’s expression flicked back to fury, or revulsion or fear, and he ducked his head and looked to the tree beside him. Things weren’t going back to normal. Not now. Hanzo was so used to seeing McCree at ease, either genuine or simply acted out. McCree thrived on being as appearing as non-threatening as possible. Now the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands were clenched, the hard line of his jaw and the forward leaning, prowling stance were unmistakably aggressive. It told Hanzo, more than McCree ever could with words, how badly something was scaring him. 

Hanzo realized his heart was beating too fast. He realized he’d fallen still again, and become watchful in the way he got when there was a threat around.

"You don't care, do you?" McCree’s voice was a growl. After the minutes of silence, it was jarring. "You don't care about the threats that face us, about Overwatch. I know you sure as hell don't care about me." 

The energy for a fight was crackling under his skin, Hanzo could see it. McCree's head was tipped forwards again, and he glared out at Hanzo from the darkness under his hat brim. Hanzo felt the dragons under his arm shift when he noticed McCree reaching for Peacekeeper with an instinctive, aborted gesture.

Hanzo didn't speak, suddenly too angry to say anything. It was an unfair accusation, but he had nothing to counter it with. He'd stayed with Overwatch for a season. Since just after Genji had found him in the Shimada Castle. And McCree was perfectly right about one thing: he didn't care about Overwatch. 

He cared about McCree though. 

Somehow right from the beginning he’d cared about McCree, right from the moment he’d invited Hanzo to shoot at a child’s toy from this exact spot. He’d more than cared about McCree and it did neither of them any good. He’d been here a season and those inconvenient, misplaced feelings hadn’t changed, and didn’t let him swallow his fury now. He glared back, and McCree spoke for both of them. 

"Why the hell are you still here?" 

It was a challenge as well as a question. It was something Hanzo wouldn't answer. Something McCree would never believe anyway. Something his self preservation and his pride couldn’t allow to be questioned.

All McCree saw was Hanzo tensing past fury into violence. He went for an arrow, nocked it, but before Storm Bow was drawn to its full extent, McCree had Peacekeeper in his hand. 

They froze. They weren't aiming at one another: both their weapons drawn, both of them tense, and both shots lined up at the ground between them. 

Then McCree let out a breath Hanzo could hear shaking. 

"Go ahead," McCree whispered.

Hanzo saw Peacekeeper move, and snapped Storm Bow up, the arrow drawn back to his cheek, aiming at McCree's heart. 

But Peacekeeper was back in it's holster on McCree's thigh, and McCree stood with his head up, back straight, glaring at Hanzo with undisguised disgust and anger. 

"Want so badly to let folks know you don’t give a damn? Start here, right here." McCree tapped his chest plate, over his heart, "Ain't no one'll see it coming but you and me. You're not the one they think will turn on them." 

Hanzo let the arrow fly. They were only a few paces apart, and before his hand had fully opened, the arrow had found its mark. 

McCree let out another breath, and dropped back to lean against his tree. They stared at each other in silence for a few moments. Then McCree spoke very softly, "The hell you here for, Hanzo?" 

Hanzo stiffly lowered his bow. His heart was beating too hard, almost painful. The arrow had bitten deep into the bark of the tree, above McCree's shoulder, beside his neck. He didn't think he'd intended to miss, but he felt weak with relief that he had.

This time, McCree didn't move, didn't speak, and without the outlaw to fill the space between them, Hanzo's fury had nothing to focus on, nowhere to go but back to himself. 

Under the skin of his left arm, the dragons stirred, hot and jagged and ready. 

He tightened his grip on his bow, and turned away from McCree's wide eyed, persistent gaze. McCree hadn’t guessed yet why Hanzo had stayed. He wouldn’t now. 

The silence stretched on until Hanzo turned, swallowing his pride and his fury and uncertainty and walked back along the rocky headland through the juniper to the path down the mountainside. 

McCree called to him before he went down the trail, and Hanzo didn't turn.

 

* * *

McCree let the tension slide out of his shoulders as Hanzo walked, poised and cold and silent, away down the path and down the mountain. 

Really he should have seen that coming. Hanzo's tolerance of McCree would never extend to friendship or trust, loyalty or anything strong enough to make him run off alone with McCree. Whom he tolerated. Grudgingly. 

Hanzo was constantly on the verge of leaving. McCree could recognize that, surely as he could in himself. Hanzo never settled, always seemed to be about to take flight. Hanzo always seemed to know that whatever the current problem was, it wouldn't be his for long. If Hanzo had brought a bag, he probably hadn't unpacked it. 

Not that McCree could blame him. The man was a wanderer, he always had that leaving look. Probably always would. He wouldn't keep anything to hinder him. Certainly not McCree. Still, he wasn’t sure he could manage what he had in mind alone.

But he’d have to now. 

"Should have figured," McCree muttered to himself. His heart was still banging against his ribs, his arms and legs feeling hot and weak from panic. He’d never seen Hanzo's cold eyes staring into him from along the length of an arrow, ready to kill.

For a second, McCree knew Hanzo would do it, and it would kill him, and all the fear and doubt and uncertainty, the fine line he'd been treading for too long, would end. For a second he'd wanted that. Wanted to know the depth of Hanzo's distaste for him. Wanted to be sure of how Hanzo felt about him for the first and last time.

He turned, and rubbed the back of his neck, studying the arrow that had slammed into the jacaranda tree just over his shoulder. Wood and bark had shattered up, and the skin of his neck pricked and ached. When he looked at his hand, it was red with blood. 

"Doesn't that just beat all," McCree murmured. 

He took the arrow with him. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

McCree didn't take anything with him when he left.

Or more specifically, he took the clothes he'd worn every day since Hanzo had met him, and nothing else.

It was infuriating to Hanzo that that worried him.

The group that assembled was a subdued one. They were worn out by the kind of prolonged exhaustion that didn't allow for the energy to be jumpy. Hanzo didn't blame them. Junkrat, D.Va, Lucio, Ana, Soldier 76 and Winston had just returned from one mission. Mei, Pharah, Mercy, Bastian, Reinhardt and Widowmaker were out on another. Winston had tried to keep their deployments staggered out, but he was struggling to keep the team compositions even. The healers were needed on every mission that went out, and the frequency that they were needed was increasing.

Finally, only eight people gathered in Winston's study above the workshop. Roadhog wouldn't leave Junkrat where he lay pale and unconscious in medical, and the others who had just returned from their mission hours ago were still asleep. Of those assembled, only Lena looked alert. Zarya looked like she'd skipped a night of sleep, Torb looked gloomy and Symmetra only quietly, and falsely, demure. Zenyatta hovered peacefully next to Genji, and Reaper could have been anything behind his mask.

Winston arrived last, moving slowly and carefully without his armour and looking utterly exhausted.

"Athena's confirmed it," he said before he settled slowly on his tire before his computer array. "McCree's not on the island."

Hanzo's hands tightened into fists.

"Defected then?" Symmetra promptly gave the most obvious, and least welcome, suggestion.

"I don't believe he would leave us," Zarya stated, somewhat unexpectedly, backing McCree with casual firmness. "His loyalty is here."

"He's had loyalties before," Reaper said in his low growl, and the tone, slightly mocking, slightly smug, made Hanzo bristle. However, before he could speak, Torbjorn spoke up sharply.

"Haven't we all." The glare that came out from under Torbjorn's eyebrows and shot directly into Reaper's mask was sharp and cold enough to fell a fir tree at fifty paces.

Reaper only tipped his head slightly to one side, towards the hole in the glass wall that Winston had thrown him through weeks ago.

"Was he injured?" Lena had apparently ignored Reaper's interruption.

The question made Hanzo flinch, just barely, thinking of the arrow he'd fired. Point blank range, with McCree standing perfectly still, ready to die.

"Not that Athena could tell. His vitals were normal until he took his tracker off, prior to going to sleep at about 3am this morning." Winston took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes with both sets of calloused black knuckles.

"I don't think he slept here," Genji offered. "I searched his room, his bed hadn't been touched."

The conversation went on, people's exhaustion damping their concern while their anxiety  made them talk in circles. Hanzo's hands clenched tighter into fists as nothing happened, no action was taken, and McCree remained missing.

"All that aside," Lena piped up finally, disclaiming all interest in McCree's current health, suggestions of his whereabouts, and possible itineraries he could have followed in the hours before dawn, "what're we going to do about it?"

A ringing silence fell over the room. And, not for the first time, Hanzo became aware of unsaid things pressing into the silence. Torbjorn had turned to glare at Reaper, and Reaper stood like a statue, arms crossed, head tipped back slightly.

The hair on the back of Hanzo's neck rose as the mask tipped slightly, and Reaper faced him.

"You've been quiet," Reaper said softly.

Hanzo was ready to leave before he was prompted to speak by the wraith and his quiet, smug voice. But suddenly he noticed the tension in Lena's jaw as she stared down at her lap, and the thunderous frown Torbjorn was directing at Reaper. Winston sat perfectly still, something that Hanzo had rarely seen before. The lights on Genji's cyborg body had dimmed. Symmetra was frowning, looking between the others in the room. She knew, like he did, that there was something here unsaid. Something that people who'd known McCree for years wouldn't say.

Something Reaper would probably be delighted to share with them all.

"We must launch efforts to recover McCree," Symmetra broke the silence for Hanzo, and the silent, loaded glaring.

Hanzo let out a grateful breath as everyone in the room turned to look at her. She frowned back at all of them, coolly composed and firm.

"I don't think he wants to be found," Reaper said. If he had a mouth under that hood, behind that mask, it was smirking as he spoke.

Hanzo's hackles raised again, and this time the dragons surged to life under his skin.

As if answering their sudden action, across the room, Genji tensed.

"We have another mission upcoming," Winston said heavily, speaking over Hanzo's fury. "McCree's highly trained and can function without us effectively. The people we're tasked to help can't. We don't have the resources to go looking for him now."

"I'm going," Hanzo said shortly. "I will find him."

Winston sat back on his tire. Lena's gaze flicked up from her lap. Beside Zenyatta, Genji's head silently swung around to face Hanzo.

"I'm going alone" Hanzo went on. "You will have enough agents for the next deployment."

"Barely," Winston rubbed his eyes again and put his glasses back on, blinking up at Hanzo.

Everyone seemed to be staring up at him. Hanzo collected all the calm and resolve of generations of Shimada lords and stood staring back with absolute certainty.

Reaper just chuckled and Hanzo turned to glare, but the wraith had already turned away and was leaving. "Well, we don't have anything to worry about then. That's settled."

"Take anything you need," Winston crawled slowly out of his tire, favouring his left side. For the first time, Hanzo could see that the fur along his right flank was patchy with dried blood and sticking up at odd angles, the rails of stitches visible in roughly shaved patches. Of course, with Mercy on assignment, their medical facilities were only as good as commonly available technology.

Lena had been sitting, back straight, cross legged, and stood up in a little blue flicker. Her usually smiling face looked troubled, but she flicked her chin up in a friendly gesture to Hanzo as she went to Winston's side.

"Come on, big fella," she said, walking at his slow pace with one hand on Winston’s shoulder. "Good luck, Hanzo."

For the first time, Hanzo saw the group as McCree must have. Twenty-two people, only a few of them young, several of them with actual death certificates, all square pegs in a world of round holes. Too well informed, too powerful to remain inactive in these turbulent, violent times. And too few, too new to last as they were. Suddenly he saw them as vulnerable, frighteningly isolated and alone.

They had only been working for a few months, and already it had been luck and training and unfamiliar teamwork that had kept them from fatalities. His mind went to Junkrat, pale under his sun-stained skin, unconcious up in medical.

No fatalities so far.

It just meant they needed McCree back, needed his experience more. Needed to take care of each other. Hanzo could feel a headache starting at his temples and made an effort to unclench his teeth.

"It's good, you looking for him," Zarya surprised him as she set a heavy, flawlessly manicured hand on his shoulder. "Good luck to you and him."

Hanzo managed a stiff nod, and the huge woman gently patted his shoulder and left. Symmetra gave Hanzo a stately nod and followed her out. Then Hanzo realized Zenyatta had left, moving with his eerie silence; Genji and Hanzo were alone in the study.

Without meaning to, Hanzo tensed. Despite the close quarters and the daily teambuilding and training, his relationship with his Genji was troubled, still mostly made of edges and memories and guilt and fury. He'd spent too long without honestly looking at himself and his actions. The same amount of time in fact, that Genji had had to move on from his old life, and settle into this one. It was infuriating to feel like the junior of the two of them.

"You'll go and find him?" Genji's voice, or whatever had been done to produce his voice, was soft, testing. "I'm not sure if that's wise."

"My wisdom isn't in question here, only his whereabouts," Hanzo replied.

"Why you, though? You're hardly the most suited."

Hanzo was almost ready to begin pointing out that he was, in fact, the best suited, when Genji went on.

"Isn't it because of you that he left?"

Hanzo's composure broke, he forgot his calm and his reserve and his need to keep these things inside. He rounded on Genji with a snarl, and the dragons broke the skin of his arm, writhing up, their light flickering around the room.

"If you're worried about him, it's too late for that." Genji had tensed, but hadn't moved, "You've done enough, haven’t you? I know he was going to talk to you last night. What did you tell him to make him run?"

Hanzo lunged, the last thread of his control breaking. They were both unarmed; Genji jumped back, more nimble than Hanzo, and instead of parrying caught Hanzo's fist, then his other wrist and turned them both, expertly pinning Hanzo in a rough hold they both knew Hanzo could break fairly easily. The dragons writhed, seeking a way out, and Hanzo held onto them, pulling himself, and them, back.

"Why are you going at all?"

"Someone must," Hanzo snarled, allowing his brother to hold him in place until he could speak. "Why didn't you offer if you care so much?"

"No one offered because no one is worried," Genji released Hanzo and stepped back. "Do you really think you know so much more than all of us? Hanzo, you never cared for him before now. We’ve known him for years."

Hanzo stood straight, turning to face his brother and forcibly settling himself, pulling the dragons back. "He's missing, without word," Hanzo growled. "That's cause for concern."

The smooth plate over Genji's face turned to Hanzo. Perfectly blank, and with Genji standing perfectly still, Hanzo felt unnerved, not for the first time, at the change between his brother and this cybernetic construct. Genji had been boisterous, loud and obnoxiously over expressive. This thing gave nothing away. Hanzo didn't even know if whatever was inside was even looking at him.

"You're really going to look for him?"

Hanzo wasn't sure what the tone in Genji's voice was meant for. Amusement? Incredulity? Relief?

"He's missing," Hanzo said stiffly.

"He's been missing before," Genji countered. "Before, he was in Blackwatch; there were times he acted well outside of the reach of Overwatch." There was a pause, and Hanzo, again, felt very keenly the missing information that no one had bothered to supply him with. Things about McCree he'd never heard spoken of. The silence that had fallen over the room when Reaper spoke of loyalties.

It was infuriating that he hadn't simply asked McCree when the man had been here. Some evening when McCree had been able to find Hanzo no matter where Hanzo had managed to settle himself. He could have asked McCree while sitting quietly together under McCree's tree, or after training, or after one of the simulated battles. Asked him about the time before Hanzo had come to Overwatch, about the time before the Swiss headquarters burned.

"He hasn’t been gone long, Hanzo," Genji said, and this time his tone was gentle. "He may come back at any time."

The understanding that his behavior could have been seen as childish, or impulsive, made Hanzo tense again. He could have just gone out to the mainland. He could be close by, waiting to come back when he'd cleared his head. Waiting until he thought Hanzo wasn't going to kill him.

But that fear had been real. Worse, the guilt had been real. He couldn't turn to the veteran agents of Overwatch, or any of the new recruits. He'd asked Hanzo, and then vanished. And now Hanzo felt tasked to keep McCree's odd predictions to himself.

He shook his head. "He was worried."

"McCree doesn't worry," Genji dismissed this as though out of hand.

"He was," Hanzo snapped, bristling, "he asked for my help."

Genji was perfectly silent as that blank faceplate tipped slightly to the side. “That was why he wanted to talk to you?”

Hanzo's hands closed into fists and he forced himself to keep his voice low. "I know he didn't want to leave."

"McCree can't be forced to do anything he doesn't want; he's more stubborn even than you," Genji said, though the dismissive tone was gone.

Hanzo just glared at the thing with his brother's voice.

"I've never known you to worry, either," Genji said after a moment.

Hanzo opened his mouth to tell Genji flatly that his worrying about a wayfaring outlaw wasn't the issue here, then Genji cut him off, "I've never even seen you flustered."

Hanzo snapped his mouth shut with a click.

"McCree's contacts were hidden from us, so I can't give you any idea from that where he might go. I can tell you, while he can steal anything he needs to travel, he likes to go by train." Genji seemed to stop whatever he did to intentionally freeze into a silent automaton. Something about him became lively and human again. More like Genji and less like an omnic.

"I have some ideas of my own," Hanzo said, almost belligerent in his brusqueness.

"Be careful of his gang, they may want to hunt him down if he's alone," Genji either didn't notice his tone, or didn't care.

Hanzo opened his mouth to retort he didn't need Genji's advice, shut his mouth, and frowned. "Gang?"

"Deadlock Gang," Genji supplied. "He was one of their people until Reyes... Reaper, turned him. They're still active, and they're still on the look out for him."

Again, the sense that Genji was keeping Hanzo just on the edge of a black hole of information.

"Didn't he tell you?" Genji asked. And there was a flash of his little brother, a jibe, hidden in that false innocent tone.

Hanzo spared whatever he'd been about to say in favour of glaring at Genji.

Genji seemed about to say more, then turned and pulled a lumpy bundle wrapped in a dusty, sunstained bandana from a shelf where Hanzo hadn't noticed it. Silently, he held it out to Hanzo. "I was going to look for him," he confessed quietly, "but you'll find him."

The flat calm of the admission seemed absolute. Slightly touched but unwilling to show it, Hanzo took the parcel, feeling his stomach drop when he realized what it was. The six shooter, Peacekeeper. McCree hadn't been armed when he'd disappeared. He looked up from the carefully wrapped weight of McCree's gun, and waited to see if Genji would explain himself.

Genji only shifted slightly, the last of the tension easing from his limbs, relaxing as though comforted, "You'd find McCree if he was in hell."

 

* * *

 

McCree was in hell.

It was always dark in here. So cold he could almost see his own breath. The voices were loud and they echoed in the huge metal room, but he'd stopped listening. The plan was straightforward and effective. The schematics under his hands were complicated, so advanced, so deadly, and McCree could see every way it could tear the defenses of any watchpoint apart.

He shut his eyes. Everyone here was too damn loud.

In his head he was watching them die. Tracer unable to run, Solier unable to fight, Reinhardt's and Zarya's strength useless, unable to do more than make them suffer as they fought not to be pulled apart. Hana and Lucio crushed, too small to warrant more finess. Winston put down like an animal. Mercy and Pharah falling like birds with broken wings. Genji and Widowmaker shot out of the air as they fought to climb for safety. Hanzo.

McCree clenched his hands on the table, and felt bile burn up the back of his throat. His eyes felt hot with panic and his mouth was dry. Hanzo dead on the ground, all the fight out of him, all the skill and pride and lethal, austere beauty and poise shattered into nothing but bloody silk, skin and hair and meat.

He suddenly felt sick.

"Jess?"

McCree looked across the crowded table towards Keith, and blinked, startled that he hadn’t realized Keith had addressed him.

"Pay attention. I said, unless you got a better idea, old boy," Keith said again.

Keith had grown over a foot since the last time McCree had seen him. Now the skinny boy with a mean streak and enough brains to make the others uncomfortable was now the undisputed leader of the new Deadlock gang. He held the attention of everyone in the room.

But so did McCree.

"I say this ain't big enough," McCree heard himself say. He shook his head briefly and straightened, ready to grandstand. "You're too spread out, need to focus what you've got and make it count. Move fast and hard, don't stint. This is probably the only shot you got. Twenty-two heroes means they got three teams of six and a couple extra to spare. You don't want to engage on too many fronts. They're used to working spread out, have the resources you don't. You want to hit them at home, while one or more teams are deployed elsewhere. They don't got much to counter that."

"Hold up now." Jude, Keith's second in command, had the flat, unblinking stare of a reptile. "They had twenty-two heroes yesterday, Jesse. Unless you got some reservations about joining us."

There was a ripple around the room, trained fighters casually setting their hands on weapons. Bright eyes watching him in the low light of their echoing command room. McCree didn't flinch, didn't freeze, didn't smile and didn't give anything away.

"I got none of those, Jude," McCree said calmly. "I was twenty-third, learn to count." He took a breath, stalling for time, his mind racing, "You fellahs seem to forget, they've got the most powerful AI in the world watching over them."

"What are you talking about,Jess?" Keith scowled.

"We ain't interested in software, McCree," Jude started but Keith shushed him with a brief clout.

"Get interested," McCree advised.  His heart was beating too fast but his hands were steady as he slowly shifted his weight and tucked his thumbs into his belt. Moved slowly, because with everyone's eyes on him, there were a lot of twitchy trigger fingers.  "She's got all the security, got all the protocols. She's an omnic and her body's the base they live in. You think she's not a priority? If you want to kill Overwatch in its infancy, first, you take out Athena."


	3. Chapter 3

Hanzo preferred to be alone. Solitude was a skill, something he'd honed and trained himself in. It brought brought him clarity, helped him keep his poise, his control. Now he expected the inanity of McCree's easy talk or casual banter.  

It would certainly be inane, and probably incomprehensible on top of that, and Hanzo was perfectly aware he would still have appreciated whatever McCree had to say.

As much as he wanted to run from the Watchpoint, bolting off to the nearest Eurorail line, he forced his feet to carry him up the winding trails back up to the headland. He knelt in the shade of the tree, and carefully unwrapped the parcel Genji had made for Peacekeeper.

The gun always looked alive with McCree, as lively and responsive as a rattlesnake coiled and striking from his hand. Now it lay bereft, a weight of metal and wood made shiny with a patina of age and use. The holster was simple leather, worn and oiled. His own ornate work on Storm Bow seemed showy when compared to the simple, blunt and unfailing care McCree took for his own weapon.

"Awake," Hanzo murmured, speaking his mother tongue, and waited.

The dragons were silent, as though they hadn't heard him.

He shut his eyes before they began to sting, and took a breath, trying to steady himself, trying to dig into the part of himself where the dragons lived.

"Awake," he said again. Again, they didn't stir.

They woke so easily when he was angry. Rose naturally when he was fighting. He’d never mastered this though. Never thought he’d need to. Hanzo kept his breath low, sank down into the calm that came with introspection, and turned his attention inward. His pulse fluttered in his throat and he could feel a tremor in his hands. His feelings were muddled, uncertain, and he was used to being sure--the dragons were used to him being sure. Used to his need to kill. He frowned at that thought, his jaw tensing.

A memory came back to him. McCree with his crooked smile in the shade of his tree, teasing Hanzo with his hat tipped back on his head. _"You ever get sore from keepin' your face like that?"_

"Help me," Hanzo whispered and shut his eyes a little tighter, "please."

His hands closed around Peacekeeper with a desperation he didn't understand. He opened his eyes suddenly, perfectly aware that if the dragons couldn't help him, no one could.

And the dragons were before him. They stood watching him calmly, their ghostly light playing on the undersides of the leaves in blue and white above him.

They chose to show themselves each no larger than a small cat, their long bodies curving up and around each other, their whiskers and fur moving gently in a breeze Hanzo couldn't feel. They gazed at him with clear, almost belligerently steady gazes. Then, moving as one creature, they bowed to him. He bowed low in reply, his heart beginning to slow to its normal pace. He opened his hands to them, and together, they straightened, and both gazed down at Peacemaker held in his cupped hands.

"You know this weapon," Hanzo said softly. Of course they did, they knew every part of it, just as Hanzo did.

The two dragons looked up at him, and nodded.

"Bring me to him," Hanzo murmured. "Find him."

 

* * *

  

Genji had been right, which was something Hanzo was prepared to admit to himself, though never to his brother. He’d changed a great deal, but he retained the churlish need of an elder sibling to never admit a younger sibling's successes over them. Within hours of leaving the island Watchpoint, following the flitting ghosts of the dragons, Hanzo was startled into inaction on a busy street by the face of McCree, gazing calmly out of a wanted poster. He blinked, and the poster was replaced by another news bulletin, warning people not to wander alone at night. The poster came back, and Hanzo discovered that a man fitting the description of the outlaw Jesse McCree had hijacked a train, and was wanted in conjunction with several other dangerous crimes.

Hanzo was mildly impressed by the brief summary of McCree's daring deeds. He'd been aware of McCree's apparent inability to leave a town without increasing the bounty on his head by a significant margin, but Hanzo was still grateful for the information as he walked to the train station, and bought the ticket the dragons pointed out to him.

The trail ended, three days of searching later, in a ghost town in the Netherlands, hours from the last stop on the train line. The scars of an Omnic battle were still here: deep furrows plowed in the ground, houses gutted by long dead fires, and walls torn away in an explosion long ago. The plants that had grown unchecked were flourishing, and young trees cast long shadows as Hanzo quietly picked his way through well-worn rubble along the only road with fresh marks of passage.

The two dragons darted before him, slightly luminescent in the shadows, occasionally frisking together as they waited for Hanzo to catch up. The town was on a tidal river and had a small canal; it had clearly been a happy place once. The dragons led him through old neighborhoods where family homes were torn open, and into town where the old town square was a blasted wreck, the surrounding walls peppered by bullets. The dragons slipped under fences and around barricades that Hanzo climbed around to follow. They moved tirelessly, though they were aware he needed rest, and would never let him fall too far behind before they stopped every few hours.

Finally, they slipped silently through the gates of an old complex of enormous buildings at the edge of town on the river bank, down by the widest part of the river. Hanzo paused long enough to notice the massive furrows left by huge transporters, and the new chain and lock around the gates. Both were new and shiny, and neither could have come from the wrecked town behind him. He climbed the fence easily as the sun slipped behind the broken walls of the western edge of town.

The dragons flickered forward, leading him through a series of long, massively tall buildings and wide, overgrown ramps down into the water. Abandoned boats of all types and sizes lay quietly rotting in their cradles all around him. The dragons lead him deeper into the boatyard, and as the light failed, Hanzo looked up to find a huge steel-hulled ship rearing up before him. The ship had been in midst of a refit when whatever happened to the town had left it totally abandoned. Dragged out of the water into a slipway, still supported by blocks and scaffolds, it was immense and dark and had been incredibly vulnerable when the war broke out. Long tears were visible in its hull, and the command bridge away up on the deck above him was black with old fire scars. The smell of rust, old bilges, and low tide made Hanzo more aware than anything else had that he was well away from anything familiar.

The ship reached so high, Hanzo had to look straight up to see the top edge of it. Then, as the dragons snuck away into the darkest part of the ship’s shadow, Hanzo realized someone had been working here. The crane on deck was shiny with new steel welded into place, and the cable and hook hanging from the boom were a recent addition. He looked down and found the ruts of transports and carriers in the gravel, rust flakes and old dock timbers. Hanzo nodded to the dragons, who were patiently waiting for him to notice this very thing, then they darted up the hull, up the dangling end of the anchor chain, over the edge and out of sight above him. Night was falling now, and the glimmer of the two little dragons left a trail like phosphorescence to follow up through the gathering dark.

He followed, climbed easily over the rail on deck, then fell perfectly silent as he heard voices.

There was a little group of guards on deck, three people playing cards beside the crane controls amidships. But they were watching over the rail, away from where Hanzo had come from, and Hanzo wasn’t ready to start asking questions yet. People who hole up in an abandoned ship, in a locked-up maze of a boat yard, on the edge of a lone abandoned town, often are not amenable to strangers asking if they’ve seen an outlaw with a bounty and a hat. Hanzo easily crept around the poker players at the crane and into the open door to the midships cabin.

Then, safely hidden and in perfect silence, he realized the dragons had stopped their advance. Hanzo took a knee in the quiet darkness then, and the dragons both settled before him, glowing gently in the darkness. “He’s here, isn’t he?” he murmured.

The dragons nodded together, looking as pleased with themselves as tiny, murderous, mythical spirits can.

“Thank you," he breathed. The dragons looked up at him and set their tiny front paws on his knee. Hanzo bowed, and was surprised when he felt both dragons reach up to him, arching their long bodies under his chin like a couple of cats. He reached up to them, an impulse his tutors had strictly forbidden since he had been a child, and stroked the downy fur of their beards. They gave a near silent purr of approval, then, moving as one creature, lowered their head in reply, and their light melted into nothing. Left in the dark, and for the first time in three days without the constant presence of the two dragons, Hanzo collected himself, and gave his night vision a moment to recover before he silently moved forwards.

With the ship dragged up in the sloping cradle, the decks were tilted at an angle, and the narrow hallways were musty and close. The dust on the floor had been disturbed in well-worn paths and rough lights had been strung along a length of construction wire. Hanzo kept to the shadows and moved deeper down towards the sounds of voices and the occasional clang of metal on metal.

Where the path went through a recently tied open door and down a stairway to the engine room, Hanzo paused, then backtracked. He shoved open doors and followed footsteps in the dust until he found a catwalk suspended over a huge, crowded, noisy room below him. The engine room. The crowded engine room, where Hanzo could see what these people were doing here, and find out if he could ask about McCree without getting shot. McCree had to be here somewhere.

He slunk along, his feet padding softly through decades of dust and old rust, the catwalks shifting and swaying slightly as he went. There were places where the narrow steel handrails had rusted through and fallen, and others where they had been cut away, apparently for repairs which never happened. Patches of the cross-hatch steel of the catwalk itself had rusted out, and Hanzo had to be careful where he stepped.

Had to find McCree. Who had to be here, somewhere, in this jumble of scruffy, noisy, rude-sounding people.

Below him, the gutted engine room was a cavernous space, with only one light at a rough table at the far end, and a half open hatch in the deckhead, near where the crane must be. The scooped-out cavities where engines, generators, pumps and tanks should have been were covered by mismatched plywood, sheets of spare steel, and pieces of scaffold. The sloping floor had made everything more hazardous than it might have been but nobody below him looked the least concerned. Hanzo crept over the barely organized wreckage and oblivious people towards the only light at the rough table spread with charts and maps, schematics and stacks of folders. Two men stood a little apart at the table, one dark haired, the other smaller and blond.

The engine room wasn't exactly crowded, but the people gathered around were noisy, lashing out unexpectedly or talking over one another. They were dressed like McCree, Hanzo realized with quiet unease. Or more specifically, like McCree with slightly more desire to keep to modern trends. He was being painstakingly careful not to make a sound. An unconscious practice his tutors had driven into him early, and one he hadn’t needed to follow much unless he felt outmatched. He didn’t realize until now how badly he wanted to stay hidden. There were a lot of people down there, and each one carried a lot of weapons. Enormous, dangerous, expensive and _restricted_ weapons.

Deadlock Gang. Hanzo suddenly remembered their emblem, and then he could see it everywhere. On the sleeves of jackets and the maps on the table, sprayed onto the walls and floor. This was McCree's old gang. They were still active, and they had McCree. Somewhere in this hellish scrap heap, they were holding McCree.

And Hanzo was going to take McCree from them if he had to kill everyone here.

"Everyone, shut up."

The voice slammed Hanzo's whirling thoughts to a full stop, and his head came up with a jerk.

McCree. McCree, standing at the foot of the companionway from the upper deck, where Hanzo had diverted to find the catwalk.

Hanzo actually felt his hand press to his mouth hard, a childish impulse he'd shed when he was still young. Knowing he would have made a noise but stopping himself. The call had been nearly out of his mouth. His heart skipped a beat, then began to race. He huffed out a breath of relief and swallowed. McCree was alive, unarmed but unhurt, and could... McCree could command the attention of all these wild, undisciplined gang members.

Hanzo swallowed, then scowled and pulled his hand from his mouth as he waited to see what would happen.

"We're taking delivery," McCree said, and the silent room erupted into bustling activity.

Hanzo watched, silent and frowning and heart pounding, as McCree walked through the gang of workers and right under Hanzo, to the table and its lone light. Hanzo crept after him, until the table was below him and he was looking down at McCree's familiar hat and the wide shoulders draped in their red serape.

McCree leant forward on the table and looked down, and Hanzo felt a jolt when he realized McCree had a cut on his shoulder, just visible above a leather cord hung around his neck. A little gash and two messy stitches where Hanzo's arrow must have kicked splinters up from the trunk of the tree. Hanzo swallowed, flexed his hands and forced himself to take another slow breath. Kept himself silent by a force of will that nearly suffocated him.

He forced himself to look away, to study the papers spread across the table. Hanzo could see the huge pages of drafting diagrams, maps, schematics and suddenly, his gaze jerked to focus on the centre of the table, where his own face scowled back up at him. McCree had turned over one of the folders stacked in the centre, and Hanzo's own picture had been paper-clipped to its cover. McCree paused over it, then turned over another. Mei's face. Turned over another and there was Junkrat's. Widowmaker's. An old photo of a Bastion unit, though not theirs, and Hanzo didn't know why he knew it wasn't their Bastion.

There were three other piles, and Hanzo felt cold when he realized that there would be a file on each of the members of Overwatch.

The map he hadn't been looking at became stark and clear and violently relevant. A thorough map of Watchpoint Gibraltar, with notes about the hallways, paths, elevations, and little secrets. Notes in McCree's blocky clear writing sprang out at him. "Hana Song sleeps here, not in her assigned quarters," "Tracer run, AM. Tracer run, PM,” "Back up servers for simulations," "Roadhog swims here, Junkrat usually on beach with him," "Symmetra practices here, dances often," "Winston's back-up hard-drives stored here." Hanzo felt a cold spike run him through when he saw, "Jacaranda tree, informal target practice, Hanzo." Below that text, crossed out by another hand but still visible, the subline "(Here there be dragons)."

Information Hanzo was perfectly aware of, or knew vaguely, or had never come across in his time  at Gibraltar was laid out below him. McCree rubbed thoughtfully at the back of his neck, tracing the lines of stitches, gazing down at it.

Behind him, the gang was expectantly looking up at the deckhead above them, and Hanzo glanced back in time to see the hatch dragged open. Abruptly, the quality of light changed as moonlight made its way into the dark, stuffy room. A blonde man detached himself from the group in the belly of the ship and came to stand at the table across from McCree. Neither man seemed to acknowledge the other.

After a few shouted calls and inquiries, there came the muffled whir and hum of hydraulics from the deck above them. Everyone stood still, faces upturned as the hydraulics idled, then whined up in pitch, and moonlight faded out as something bulky covered the hatch opening. It hung for a moment, and began lowering down into the belly of the ship towards the waiting gang. A huge crate, strapped shut and spray painted with the sign of the Deadlock Gang.

And another symbol.

Hanzo bit his tongue, his shoulders tensed as he recognized it, and while he looked away, the crate came down into the raised hands of the waiting gang.

Forcing himself to look back down, he watched McCree stare back towards the incoming delivery.

The incoming weapon. It could only be a weapon.

"Better be right about this, Jess," The blond man growled at McCree. Looking up at McCree, Hanzo suddenly could see him clearly and was a little startled. He had a sweetly beautiful baby face, but the low voice and bright, wild eyes made him seem more dangerous somehow. He was holding a revolver, Hanzo realized, his fingers going over it in quick, anxious little picks.

"It'll do, if you do as I say," McCree replied coolly.

The man hissed at him, about to say more, but a third man joined them at the table, and cuffed the blonde as a way of greeting.  

"It's just about wiped us out, Jess," the third man murmured. He was tall, dark haired and sun stained. "You better do right with this."

"Right tool for the right job. You asked what's good enough to take on a organization that controlled the world. I'm delivering. Couldn’t have gotten this without me and you know it. You said you'd foot the bill, said you wanted it. Don't much like hearing you bitch about what it cost you."

McCree's voice raised the hairs on the back of Hanzo's neck. He'd never heard McCree sound like that. Hanzo absently rubbed one hand over his chest, as though trying to sooth his own frantic heartbeat.

"Time'll tell," the third man, who must be their leader, spoke mildly, and Hanzo wasn't fooled. McCree sounded like that sometimes too.

The crate thudded down on the mismatched decking, and the surrounding gang members began loosening the crate straps and busying themselves with crowbars.

"You think I don't know what this is worth to me? My livelihood?" McCree murmured. He was leaning against the table, arms crossed, hips cocked, the picture of ease as he watched the gang tearing the crate apart.

The cherubic blonde snorted, and the leader clipped him again.

"We trust you, Jess." The leader reached up, scuffing the backs of his fingers through McCree's beard in a mock punch. "Well, you know I do."

And suddenly, the leader made a fist in McCree's shaggy hair, and yanked him around hard. Their faces were suddenly much too close.

Hanzo made a tiny, involuntary movement, and the rusted steel support beside him clicked.

Three faces turned up abruptly, even as Hanzo tensed and snapped himself back and away, too late. There was a bitten off curse and the glint of a revolver swinging up towards him, and  a glimpse of McCree's eyes gone wide.

The single light on the table smashed and died.

Darkness fell and then was instantly shattered by the flash of a revolver as a shot rang out, horribly, appallingly loud in the metal belly of the ship's open engine room. Hanzo went to spring away and realized he couldn't. He was falling. Helpless in the dark with a tangled cage of twisting, rusted steel into the uneven tangle of steel and scrap wood around him. The catwalk had totally given out.

The darkness of the hold exploded into curses and confused shouts, questions and clanging steel on steel, rusted steel screeching and snapping as it gave. The entire run of the catwalk began coming down.

Hanso tensed, furious with himself, furious with McCree, hating the Deadlock Gang, Overwatch, and the arrival of that weapon, and dropped through the rusted steel. He managed to land crouched on the uneven decking and staggered, praying he wouldn't be impaled by supports falling from the above him.

"Where is he?" A voice snarled in the dark, "I'll kill him-- where's he hidin'?"

Hanzo had to move, now.

A hand closed on his arm in the dark and he snapped up instinctively, aiming a palm strike to where he hoped his attacker's centre chest would be. The strike was caught neatly in a cold prosthetic hand, and McCree's low voice hissed in his ear.

"Sunshine, it's me."

The fight dropped out of Hanzo instantly, and he was dragged forward, out of the twisted metal around him, guided by McCree. Then they were up a ladder and the noise behind them was muffled. McCree nearly ran, dragging Hanzo with him, up the uneven, sloping deck through the confusion and the dark.

"How can you see?" Hanzo growled, furious at his own confused helplessness.

"I got good eyes, ain't you ever noticed?"

McCree moved before him without hesitation, stepping unerringly over the vague shapes of breakwaters and through doors, telling Hanzo when to step up or climb, until the noise was well behind them, the light was gone entirely.

Then the hand on his arm pulled him forward and around, and McCree's arms suddenly closed around him.

"McCree," Hanzo snapped, stiffening as he felt himself gathered up, pulled in, and McCree's arms tightening around him.

"Hanzo," McCree's voice was soft, almost reverent, his face tucked down into Hanzo's shoulder. "God, Sunshine, you found me, you came."

"Of course I found you. We have to leave." Hanzo stood stiffly in the tight circle of Hanzo's arms, his hands flat against McCree's chest plate. The wool of the serape fell around them both, and Hanzo was briefly aware of the heat McCree seemed capable of generating. He hadn't realized how cold he'd been.

"Can't," McCree actually shuddered. His arms tightened around Hanzo.

"Now," Hanzo snapped, and shoved McCree away.

He didn't get far; McCree felt the push and clung to Hanzo desperately, moving with the speed that came from fear.

"I can't," McCree's voice broke, and his hands fisted in the silk of Hanzo's yukata. "Hanzo, please, I know what I'm doing."

"If you did we'd be away from here," Hanzo growled. "Let me go."

His heart was hammering in his chest, and his breath was coming short. He didn't think he'd be so shaken from his fall down with the catwalk.

"How'd you find me?" McCree, typically unable to stay on topic, gently nuzzled his face into Hanzo's neck.

Hanzo abruptly shoved McCree away, feeling the hair on the back of his neck go up again. "Your gun," he snapped, annoyed at his breathlessness. "Tell me what you're doing here."

"Peacekeeper?" McCree sounded astonished, his hands on Hanzo's shoulders, thumbs absently brushing back and forth, stroking over silk and skin. "I left it so Keith wouldn’t… How?"

"The dragons," Hanzo said shortly. "It only worked because it was wholly yours." And because I begged, Hanzo added in the sour privacy of his own mind.

Blind in the dark, he pulled the wrapped weight of McCree's gun from where he'd carried it, tucked into his yukata against his skin. He shoved it forwards, into McCree's chest.

"Well shoot," McCree whispered. He took it, keeping one hand on Hanzo.

Abruptly, Hanzo realized how cold it was without McCree against him. The hand on his shoulder was startlingly warm.

"Now tell me what you're..." Hanzo broke off with a shaking little gasp.

He was suddenly aware of heat washing back over him, McCree's heavy body gathering him back in. The big, mismatched hands pushed into Hanzo's hair, and blindly, stupidly, Hanzo tipped his head up, and felt McCree's soft breath on his parted lips.

"Jess!" A furious snarl echoed up to them, alarmingly close, and then the horrible shattering crash of a gunshot broke the silence and the darkness with a flash of light Hanzo barely noticed because his eyes had closed.

"Run, straight past me-- there’s a ladder up to a hatch." McCree's body had gone stiff with tension and Hanzo was already moving.

Something tugged at his hair, and McCree pushed a hard little edged thing into his hand. Hanzo shook his head briefly and shoved something sharp and small into his yukata. He moved blindly to where he knew there must be an way out. McCree brought him here to make an escape. There must be one. His hand fell on a rung of a ladder and Hanzo lept up, reaching above him to find a hatch cover. He yanked at the wheel around and shoved upwards. The hatch whined briefly as it swung away over him, heavy and stiff with rust, but he threw it back and darted up and out.

He emerged on the very highest point of the bow, with the old shipyard spread out below him, the hatch yawning black behind him, and gang members a dozen metres away. Hanzo froze when he saw them, six gang members with rifles and grenades at their sides. But they were by the crane, yelling enquiries down the dark open maw of the hatch at midships and swearing and didn't see him make it to the rail.

Below him, he could hear voices, snapping, snarling demands like a pack of wolves, and McCree's voice, a quiet growl over all of them.

There was another shot, and the voices died as though all their owners had caught the bullet.

Hanzo froze halfway to the rail. His heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t move. There were Deadlock people behind him. He would be seen. He had to move, and he was frozen with panic thick and jagged in his throat.  

"Cut that out, Jude," McCree's voice snapped viciously. "You want to waste munitions so bad, I'll find you a couple cans you can put on a rail out back."

Alive. Hanzo let out a breath and his heart hammered back to full speed. He made it to the rail, vaulted over and threw himself down towards the darkness of the shipyard.

 

* * *

 

"He yanked my hand up," Jude was still snarling half an hour later. "I missed my shot because he yanked my damn hand up and smashed the light."

His accent got thicker when he was angry, McCree reflected. He spat blood and shook his sweaty hair out of his eyes. He wasn't the only one though.

"Jess, you tell me," Keith growled. "You tell me where he went."

"Back home," murmured McCree, for about the thirtieth time since he'd told Hanzo to run. At least he'd gotten away. He must have gotten away. They wouldn't still be angry if he'd been caught. They’d show him the body if he’d been caught.

McCree was pinned up by two of Keith’s enforcers, each twisting one of his arms behind his back, bullying him to stay on his feet.

Standing with the only light behind him, fists clenched and with McCree's blood on his brass knuckles, Keith looked a lot less like the skinny kid that had worshiped McCree in the old days. He was the leader of the Deadlock Gang, and he could kill McCree without anyone saying a word of protest.

"Told you he never turned," Jude snarled, "I told you. He wasn't ours, never was. Told you we should'a kept him caged like a damn dog just for information, you're the one's gone soft on him you..."

Jude was cut off as Keith’s eyes went wide and he barked out an oath. Then Keith was moving, and Jude didn’t have time to get away.

Keith didn't carry a gun, and Jude didn't have time to go for his. In the frenzied attack that followed, it wouldn't have mattered. Jude snapped out furious insults, then questions, then frantic pleas in the end, mumbling fast out of a mouth with a broken jaw and missing teeth. His voice broke as Keith hammered him down. McCree watched Jude die in six terrible minutes without saying a word.

"Anyone else think I gone soft?" Keith snarled, finally rearing up and away from the crumpled, bloody body on the sloping deck. "Who brought us here? Who made this damn plan to sink Overwatch and get control? Me. No one else could have. This gang's mine, and you're following the orders I give you!" His arms were spread out as he panted, and turned slowly in the centre of a circle of quiet, watchful gang members.

As Keith turned, looking for eye contact, McCree watched the gazes of his gang members  drop to the deck. This wasn’t the first time they’d seen Keith lose his temper. None of them risked meeting his eyes. None of them would risk disobedience.

Keith faced McCree again and he bared his bloody teeth. "Jess, you thank your guardian angel I still need you, or you best believe you'd be following this dumb bastard to whatever god you think might find you."

"Much obliged," McCree murmured, holding Keith's mismatched gaze. One of his eyes was glass, and the colour never matched. Blood had splattered up Keith’s arms and chest, across his face and into his hair. His hands clenched around the brass knuckles over each fist. Jude's empty body bubbled at his feet. The darkness, broken by the single flickering lamp made the belly of the ship feel like deep water, and McCree felt like he was going to drown among these sharks.

"Home," Keith snarled, and McCree took a moment to realize he had gone back to reply to McCree's original answer. "Home to tell the rest of them what we're up to?"

"He don't know what we're planning, or what we got." McCree said. That was probably a lie. Then he went on, hoping his exhaustion and feigned disinterest carried over and covered the bullshit he was spreading,"Trying to kill him would take time, and work, and casualties. He wouldn’t go down easy. Even if you managed, killin’ him here would just make them mad, make them come to us and we don't want that. We want them at home. They can shore up all the defenses they want. We'll have an easier shot at them if they're on the defensive. I know what they've got ready. We can still take them out if they’re on guard, especially if we destroy Athena first. We can’t if they come to us before we’re ready.”

McCree watched Keith for any reaction, but none came. Keith stood perfectly still before him and he was the best damned poker player McCree had ever taught. Jude's nails scratched on the rusted deck as his hands twitched. McCree could only feel the aching tired that came from pain and the dread yawning under him. This was going bad. This was why he’d needed help.

He tried to wait Keith out, but couldn’t. He took another careful breath, winced as his ribs ached and went on.

"What we've got can, and will, break through any of their defenses. Keeping him, killing him, would have been stupid. All he'll tell when he goes home is that I turned," McCree said with a weight to his words that came from horrible, heartbreaking honestly. "They'll believe him. They ain't never believed I was theirs anyway."

Keith took a step towards him, then another, Jude’s bloody teeth crunching underfoot and tracking spattered gore until he stood before McCree. When he spoke his face was close enough to kiss. "Who do you belong to, Jess?"

McCree thought of the golden scarf he'd wrenched from Hanzo's hair less than an hour ago, safely tucked down his shirt against his heart. "You," he lied.

 

* * *

 

The Deadwatch Gang followed Hanzo into the abandoned city. He’d barely managed to hit the ground running, mostly on memory through the dark maze of sheds and buildings and rotting, skeletal boats, before there was a shout behind him. Then rattle of gunshots. Hanzo ducked instinctively and kept to the dark as he ran.

The first time he was caught, it was just as he cleared the fence out of the shipyard, and he simply left three gang members dying in the gravel and scruffy grass.  

The second time was in the town square, and he took two glancing shots over his shoulder before he reached the top of a domed court house and began firing back with vengeful accuracy. He made his way over the rooftops after that, hissing in pain and anger, shaking his loose hair out of his eyes. When the high rooftops of the town centre ended, and the shattered, low houses and wide streets gave him less and less cover, Hanzo was caught a third time.

Someone had passed the word that he could not be taken unless it was at close range, and Hanzo barely had space to draw his bow as more than ten of the gang members rushed him in the dark. The arrow he shot went through two of them and lodged in a third, and after that, it became a mob. Hanzo twisted and ducked and climbed over his attackers, striking out when he could make it count, and the gang members spit and swore and hit anything that moved. Usually each other.

Hanzo was staggering with exhaustion by the time he broke out of the melee and made a dash for open space. He could hear them start to chase, and nocked another arrow, lunged forwards and turned, falling away from the gang and drawing the arrow back to his cheek.

"Ryu ga teki wo kurai!"

The dragons exploded out, no pleas needed for this; they were always ready to kill. They ripped through the terrified and confused gang, and Hanzo hit the shattered asphalt hard, watching the dragons spiraling away from him, bodies dropping in their wake. Hanzo's heart hammered as he watched them go. It always did, seeing them huge and powerful like this. An hour ago they had been the size of ferrets, and rubbed their smoothly scaled backs under his chin.

They hadn't killed everyone though, and in another moment, Hanzo was on his feet and running again, drawing another arrow back and turning to fire, over and over, into the last of those chasing him.

He ran on, even as the pursuit gave up, even as the moon swung around over him, even as sweat ran down his cheeks and the chill of the night made something in his chest ache for McCree's warmth around him. His hair stuck to his neck and he didn't realize why until he reached the train station in the freezing pre-dawn and found his hair scarf was missing. Lost in the melee probably. He spared a furious resentful thought to the beautiful gold silk crushed underfoot into the shattered asphalt, and wished he’d managed to kill more of the gang.

He bought a ticket west, declaring Storm Bow was a harmless antique. The young ticket seller, blinking in sleepy pre-dawn apathy, had looked at a scowling man covered in blood and sold him his ticket at double price. He didn't argue, and locked himself into his tiny and exorbitantly priced cabin. Panting, he dropped into his seat and only when the train started smoothly out of the station and began accelerating west, did he remember the edged thing McCree had pressed into his hand in the dark. It felt familiar, and he pulled it out from the bowl of his yukata.

It was an arrow head. One of his.

He scowled at it in confusion. There would be hundreds of these, scattered all over the world. He had no idea what had inspired McCree to save this one, tie it to a strip of leather like a pendant on a necklace. A keepsake. This had been the leather cord around his neck Hanzo had noticed from his hiding place on the catwalk.

Then he remembered, and leant forwards without meaning to, curling protectively around the arrowhead in one convulsive impulse.

_"Start here."_

McCree had stood calmly with his back to his tree at the other end of the drawn arrow. This arrow. Hanzo's hands closed over it. McCree hadn't brought Peacekeeper when he'd left, but he'd saved this.

Hanzo spent the train ride west curled around it, his hair hanging down, hiding his face.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The telling of Hanzo’s journey, his findings, the gang, and his flight away from them, missed a few crucial factors.

He gave his report before nearly the entire group of heroes, the active teams recalled hastily when it occurred to Hanzo to send word to Gibraltar from the train.

Hanzo did not mention the symbol he'd recognized on the crate. He did not mention that the leader of the Deadlock Gang had stroked McCree's jaw and grabbed his hair. He certainly did not mention that McCree had clung to Hanzo in the darkness of the ship. He didn't mention the moment between them before a gun went off and McCree had told him to run. Hanzo was trying not to think about what might have happened if someone hadn't fired that blind shot.

He did tell Overwatch that there were detailed plans. Told them they received a shipment that had apparently cost the Deadlock Gang most of its reserves. He told them that McCree had been scared. Told them McCree had saved Hanzo's life at least twice.

Winston sat on his tire, recovered now in the days since Hanzo had gone and Mercy had returned; he looked grim and stayed silent.Nobody interrupted, or offered any questions or remarks. Again, the division of something known and unknown split the room. Everyone who had been present at the first fall of Overwatch stayed perfectly quiet, everyone who wasn't looked thoughtfully off into space.

"We recover him," Hana broke the silence and made a little shrug. "Easy. They can't keep him from us."

"Oh, they can keep him," Reaper replied. Again, the smile behind in his voice that made Hanzo stiffen.

"Woah woah now, come on, thought you guys believed in no man left behind." Lucio held out both hands, placating, and glancing at Soldier76 for support.

Soldier just shook his head a little, squared his shoulders. "Could he have left with you?" Soldier's mask turned towards Hanzo.

Hanzo hesitated, _I can't._ It had been a plea. "No."

"They were already chasing you by then?" Soldier asked. He sounded irritatingly calm. Veteran of a thousand uncomfortable debriefs.

"No," Hanzo said. He should have dragged McCree out of that hatch, should have knocked him the hell out and carried him away. "He said he couldn't. He said he knew what he was doing."

Reaper's rough chuckle made Hanzo tense again. Hana and Lucio frowned at him.

"I pulled him out of that gang when he was seventeen," Reaper said bluntly. "They had him, I took him, and he never let them go and..."

"Reyes, shut it," Soldier snapped and Reaper brushed the curt order away with a vague wave of one clawed hand.

"Deadlock Gang didn't survive on it's own merits," Reaper snarled, half at the room at large and half into the face of Solder's order to shut up. "A bunch of drunk, gun-toting rednecks with one shared braincell and enough munitions and contraband and whiskey to send them to hell any hour of any day. McCree kept them alive, kept them from me, from the law. No other way they would have survived this long. They’re his pet now, a nice retirement plan he’s been growing."

"No," Hanzo heard himself snap, and regretted it instantly, as every face turned towards him. Twenty people with mingled pity and apprehension in their eyes. "He wanted to leave."

"Sure," Reaper spread his hands in a mock helpless gesture, "He said he wanted to leave when I pulled him out too. It's a good game he played, but he's chosen where he wants to spend the rest of it."

"Not the only one with divided loyalties, Reyes," Soldier growled.

Reaper rounded on him, but something in the set of Soldier's shoulders, the straightforward gaze from behind the visor, or the way his hands were clenched shut him down. He dropped abruptly into a silence that didn't seem characteristic of him. Hanzo noticed the edges of his shoulders blur slightly, as if wanting to wrath out.

"The boy's a fool, but he's knows where the wind is blowing from," Ana said, talking over any further potential infighting from Reaper or Soldier. "He could be playing them. We need to allow for his being in control of this, whatever it looks like."

"No way he'd turn on us," Lucio crossed his arms, scowling at Reaper.

"We thought he had to be in touch with his old gang," Torbjorn said, a little consolingly, and earning a glare from Hana and Lucio, "but this is a little much to be overlooking, Ana. You said there were notes on that map, Hanzo?"

Hanzo nodded once, his jaw tight.

"Places we sleep, where we're alone. Can't let that just slide," Torbjorn finished.   He shook his head briefly.

"I do not believe he would betray us," Zarya said firmly. "We must move to retake him. He will speak for himself."

"I agree," Mei, standing close to Zarya, nodded firmly. "This is a rescue."

Reaper snorted and Reinhardt looked down, crossing his arms as he hunched his shoulders up. It's a terrible thing, Hanzo reflected, to see a big man try and make himself smaller.

Hanzo looked to Winston, who had been toying with an unopened jar of peanut butter with his feet, and using a comically tiny looking pencil to scratch out something on the back of an envelope.

"We must declare him a threat, or a victim," Symmetra said, breaking the silence that fell.

"Seems simple enough to me." Junkrat, recovered enough to join them was standing with Roadhog at his back, shrugged, "McCree ain't attacked us yet, he saved Hanzo, he needs to come back here and can't. We can take him from them. You did that before right, Reaper? You made that sound easy. Or was everything easier before you went all to marmite?"

Reaper's head snapped around into the force of Junkrat's sharp grin, and Roadhog's hands closed meaningfully into fists.

Tracer left where she'd been flickering anxiously back and forth by the window, and leant over Winston's desk, "Well, big guy?"

Winston huffed out a breath, and let his pencil drop. "Threat analysis. McCree's an undercover operative with extensive experience working outside of Overwatch, and the United Nation’s laws or any code of sanctioned actions. He's survived this long on his skills, which are formidable, and his contacts, which are dangerous. We have to assume that the time he's spent since the recall has been reconnaissance, and his time before the recall, he was making his living through his criminal activity. He's too great an unknown agent to allow to overlook. And I have another reason to believe he's a threat."

Hanzo was holding his breath, and forced himself to let it out while his chest shook. His palms felt sore where his nails had bitten into the skin.

"I had Athena check his comp usage. His log in was his name and the password was the day he joined Overwatch. Athena could find no trace of anything that could remotely be called into question our suspicions of him. But she found he had made a separate account, one that took her over a day to access.”

Winston Looked up at Hanzo, then around the room, “The username and password were totally unrecognizable. I have no idea how he kept it up. McCree has been using this account to keep in touch with Deadlock. He's been trading emails with their leader, Keith Salt. The gang got in touch with him—Keith had an idea, but he needed McCree’s help to take out Overwatch before it grew."

Hanzo stiffened again, his gaze snapping from Winston's envelope math back to his face.

But Winston just sighed and went on, “They offered him money. McCree turned them down and advised them on other targets, like he has been for years. Then they offered information, people, resources, they tried to offer him property and weapons and I don’t even know what all. McCree turned them down and laughed it off. Then they offered him a place in the gang. He accepted, without hesitation. Less than two hours later he was gone from the island."

Hanzo felt like he'd been sucker punched. McCree's appeal under his tree on the headland. That had been genuine. It had to be. His desperation in the forepeak of the ship, clinging to Hanzo. That had been real too, had to be. McCree knew what he was doing.

Across the room, Hana set her jaw and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Lucio shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned at the floor. Mei quietly took Zarya's hand and Tracer abruptly, and accidently, recalled back across the room. Hanzo fought for breath.

Winson stopped toying with his peanut butter and climbed to his feet out of his tire. "I am officially declaring Jesse McCree a threat to Overwatch, and that his suppression, and that of the Deadlock Gang our first and only priority. Athena made it clear that an attack is incoming, and that we are vulnerable apart. The Watchpoint will be sealed until we can form a plan to..."

"You're a fool," Hanzo's voice snapped out, sharp enough to make Winston flinch in surprise. Everyone turned to him and Hanzo thanked years of training for his unwavering grace, and his natural, high born assumption he had everyone's unhesitating obedience. He was poised, perfectly calm, and everyone looked at him, waiting. He had nothing to say.

"He left his gun," Genji said quietly. "He wouldn't have left that if he had not meant not return."

Everyone looked around at him, and Hanzo felt a surge of gratitude for his brother. Then alarm shot through him. He suddenly wished he'd never given Peacekeeper back to McCree.

Winston sat back a little on edge of his tire, and scowled down at the math he'd done.

No one, Hanzo thought, can scowl like a thousand pound gorilla.

"We need more information," Winston huffed out a breath.

"I will take a team, and remove any threat McCree poises," Hanzo heard himself say.

Winston stared sadly up at Hanzo, the small, bright amber eyes focused on him. "I know you were friends."

The sentence was inaccurate as far as Hanzo was concerned, and not really on topic. Then the realization of what he'd offered slapped him in the face.

Hanzo was one of their few snipers. And he'd offered to remove McCree if the need arose.

For the first time since this meeting began, Hanzo became aware of Genji's blank faceplate turned in his direction. His brother was frozen, a silent automaton again.

"I'll go with him," Reaper volunteered unexpectedly, and Hanzo looked across to find that ghoulish mask turning to face him, tilted to one side. "It's about time I make sure that whelp is put down."

Hanzo took a breath, abrupt and almost a snarl, then Winston cut him off.

"Find him then, Hanzo. I'm amazed you already did once. Deadlock's a threat; McCree went willingly, and you need to be ready to answer that. But this is search and recovery, Reaper, not a kill order." Winston looked between the two of them, and rubbed his wide forearms. It was a gesture that Hanzo had only ever seen wild, unenhanced gorillas do, and Hanzo realized that for Winston, it was childish, probably comforting.

"I'm comin' too," Lucio said, jerking up to his full height, only an inch or two shorter than Hana.

"I'm going with them," Mercy spoke up suddenly, looking pale but calm, and she smiled at Lucio, "I think it might be best if we veterans go out this time."

"Yes, I agree," Reinhardt said, and whatever arguments Lucio and Hana had been about to make died. They both adored Reinhardt.

"I'll come as well. If this is the last time I'll see him, it'll have to be..." Ana started.

"No," Hanzo snapped, tense with panic rising in his throat.

"I helped train the boy," Ana said with an edge to her voice that Hanzo, even with all his poise, thought he might have trouble countering.

"Ana, he doesn't want another sniper," Soldier said quietly.

Ana's face seemed to tighten, a thought occurring to her that hurt. "Of course," she said gently.

And Hanzo felt sick, realizing that the team forming around him could turn into a kill squad, with him as its cutting edge.

"I'm coming," Soldier went on.

"Like hell," Reaper snarled, "Stay here, Soldier. Leaves us a little light on defenses if you come."

"Good thing you've got me then," Mei was tiny next to Zarya, but she looked calm and fierce as she gazed up at them all.

Everyone glanced at Torbjorn, and seeming to feel the unspoken question, he shook his head. "I like the lad too well. I'm not coming out on this one. You don't need affection on this kind of a mission."

"That's exactly what we do need," Lucio burst out, looking lost and upset.

"The six of you," Winston said, struggling though the words; he looked heartbroken, his sloping shoulders looked heavy, and the jar of peanut butter untouched. "I won't say good luck. Just dismissed. Come home safe."

"I can't take this seriously!" Lucio burst out, stalling their dismissal. "You're going out on a hunt for McCree? We don't have his side of it! We know this guy, shared meals, slept in the same room—he's our friend!"

"You're unsuited for warfare," Symmetra spoke over him, rising from her seat and letting it dissipate into light behind her.

"What's that?" Lucio bristled, glaring up at her.

"A compliment," Symmetra said tartly.

Lucio's mouth shut with a snap, looking as hurt and stunned as if she'd slapped him.  

Hanzo stood like a statue as the members of Overwatch trailed out miserably, some offering comfort or encouragement to Hanzo, Hana and Lucio tasking him to bring McCree back to them. Reaper hissed at Soldier, and they left from opposite doors. Torbjorn left without speaking, and Ana and Pharah followed him. Symmetra offered him her prayers, and Hanzo might have been touched if he could have felt anything. Winston just huffed as he left, forgetting his peanut butter, and Tracer blinker out in a rush with Widowmaker.

"You said you'd find him," Genji's voice finally dragged Hanzo shuddering out of inaction. Again, they were alone in Winston's study.

"I did," he replied.

"And did you find a traitor?" Genji's voice was calm, but Hanzo knew now, that calm could mean anything. Genji was as still and lifeless as a sheathed sword.

"No," Hanzo whispered.

McCree's words were in his head. _"Something big's coming, need your help to stop it."_  Why hadn't he listened. Why hadn't he believed that working with McCree would have saved them all of this. Why hadn't he trusted him.

 _"I know what I'm doing._ " Could he trust that now?

"I should have taken him out." Hanzo shut his eyes. He should have dragged McCree from them.

"He's more stubborn than you," Genji said again.

They were both silent, alone in Winston's empty workshop, and Hanzo wished for Genji to produce something that could bring Hanzo to McCree like he had last time. Like Genji had been a conjuror and Hanzo needed this trick performed again.

"He's armed now," Genji said quietly. "He's still on your team."

Hanzo shut his eyes. McCree wasn't helpless. He was a fighter, could survive anything. Hanzo had trained with him for weeks. He could get close, get him out. Kill everyone else in the gang if that's what he needed to do to bring McCree back up to the tree on the headland over the sunny Mediterranean.

"He should not have gone," Hanzo whispered, and shook his head. "He asked me to go with him."

Genji moved then, a sudden, compulsive gesture, his hand flicking to Hanzo's shoulder to comfort him. He stopped himself, but Hanzo had already flinched in offense at the pity.

"He's smarter than they know," Genji said, his hands clenched at his sides. "Even Reaper. McCree plays the fool, but no fool lives as long as he does."

Hanzo nodded stiffly. And felt the weight of the arrow head on its cord, tied above his elbow, under his sleeve where no one would see. The arrow head that told McCree Hanzo couldn't hurt him.

"I'm bringing him home alive," Hanzo said. And the decision shocked him with relief.

 

* * *

 

They arrived in the little town by the tidal river only a day and a half after Hanzo had left it. It was quiet, and though Reaper and Mei scouted their flanks and Hanzo scaled the remaining buildings, while Soldier, Reinhardt and Mercy covered the streets, they didn't find anyone. When they regrouped at the gates of the shipyard, Mei gave Hanzo a few arrows she'd found, and he felt oddly touched by the gesture.

"Pretty sure you'll only need one for this job," Reaper said with a little smirk behind his mask.

Hanzo and Mei both glared at him, and Reinhardt casually broke the lock off the gate to the shipyard with one hand. In the early morning light, the place looked sad instead of spooky. A forgotten sweater hung on the open door to a workshop overgrown with ivy and creepers, obscuring a half-finished boat in its cradle rotting before it had ever touched water. Fastidiously organized tools laid out on work benches were rusted out of recognition. Piles of wood had sprouted flowers or been overrun with creepers. The roof of one huge, cathedral-like building had fallen in, and the massive hull of an abandoned, wooden hulled ship inside had a flourishing rhododendron growing from its decking.

"It was there," Hanzo stopped in his tracks, so suddenly Reinhardt walked into him, and Hanzo stumbled.

"What? The ship?" Soldier looked from Hanzo to the vast slipway that lay rotting, green with seaweed, and totally empty.

Hanzo nodded, blinking at the place where the beast of a ship had vanished. Soldier cocked his head to Mei, and the two of them cautiously went forward.

"This would be a perfect place for an ambush," Reaper said in his low voice. "I'm pretty sure McCree's the only one that's turned on us, so far. Unless you two were closer than I'd thought."

Hanzo rounded on Reaper, but he was still talking.

"I didn’t think you two got past playing pretend target practice and pulling his pigtails, and actually managed to save a horse and ride a..."

"Gabriel," Mercy snapped.

"Yes, doc," Reaper replied in mock penance.

Hanzo leveled a look of pure hatred into Reaper's mask and turned back towards the slipway. He watched as Mei walked to the edge of the wharf, sprayed her freezing compound down towards the river, then jumped. Initially startled, Hanzo let out a little breath as she started walking carefully out over a thin path of ice, her blaster aimed down before her feet.

"He wanted you, too," Reaper said after a minute, the low voice disconcertingly close to the back of Hanzo's neck.

Hanzo bristled and refused to turn. Reaper was on his team and it would hardly be helpful to actually injure him. Regardless of merit, wisdom, or any justice in the world.

"Never figured what McCree's type was, then you arrived," Reaper went on.

Behind them, Reinhardt shifted, his massive armor grinding against itself, and Mercy hissed. Hanzo looked out at the waters of the wide river, where Mei walked on the surface like a tiny, lovely miracle.

"McCree's got the devil's own luck, you know.  Figures the only person he ever loved would volunteer to kill him." Reaper's voice slid soft as smoke over Hanzo, curling over his shoulders and drifting through his hair.

Hanzo forgot his inability to injure people on his team. Whatever Reaper saw when Hanzo turned on him was enough that he backed a step and the edges of his body swirled into the ghostly wisps of his wraith form.

"Ha," Reinhardt snorted, and waved one hand as though to dispel Reaper's mist. "Serve you right, bully."

"Reaper was also sent to kill someone he loved," Mercy said, with an acid sweetness that made her little smile seem razor edged. "Though that broke more than just his heart."

"Ship's under the water," Soldier called, heading back to their little group with his blaster over one shoulder.

Hanzo watched the change in Reaper when Soldier walked back to them, and remembered that the explosion in the Swiss headquarters had come from inside.

"Mei can see it," Soldier went on, approaching the tense little group. He paused, and looked between them: Mercy looking like she was about to forsake the hippocratic oath earlier than usual today, Reinhardt looking mildly disgusted, Hanzo scowling thunderously with his hand white-knuckled on his bow, and Reaper halfway into his waith form.

"You capable of being on this mission, Reyes?" Soldier asked. He casually dropped his weapon into both hands again.

Reaper hissed, seemed to hesitate, then turned solid again and stalked towards the water, shoving past Mei as he went.

"He wasn't always like that," Soldier said mildly, as they watched him go.

"They cut the welds holding the ship to the cradle and launched the cradle back down the slip," Mei said as she rejoined them. "I can see the broken steel, and they tore the hull open. It would have sunk as soon as it hit the water. And it was definitely intentional. It wasn't an accident."

Behind her, Reaper walked off the edge of the wharf, fell towards the water, then dissolved into a wraith and vanished.

"They've moved on," Soldier sighed. "Reyes might have some idea about where they'll go."

Hanzo looked from Soldier to the empty place on the wharf where Reaper had been, and eased his grip on Storm Bow.

 

* * *

 

Reaper emerged soaking wet but no less dead than before from the tidal river minutes later.

“Ship’s been trashed,” He hissed shortly. “Wrecked. Al the papers that had been in the engine room are pulp and there’s pieces of crate the size of a goddamn tank and garbage everywhere.” He paused and tipped water out from under his mask, then added sourly, “And a corpse.”

"Oh my gosh," Mei said. "Who was it?"

Reaper, shedding water in sheets from his long coat, looked too annoyed, even behind his mask, to answer.

"Was he wearing a red bandana around his neck? Yellow hair?" Hanzo asked.

Reaper nodded, and sourly tipped water out of his hood.

The third man around the table with McCree. The one who'd aimed up at him, and shot the support for the catwalk when... When McCree had killed the light. Hanzo frowned.

"Cause of death?" Soldier asked.

"I didn't have an opportunity for a full forensic examination, Morrison," Reaper said sourly. "I was drowning."

"You're looking none the worse for it. Cause of death?" Soldier spoke with the ease of someone far too used to Reaper’s bullshit to let it bother them.

"Beaten," Reaper growled. He held his hands up, apparently letting water run out of his gauntlets, and then tipped his arms down so water poured out of his sleeves.

Hanzo enjoyed Reaper looking so miserably like a drowned rat and wondered if the Deadlock Gang had always been so brutal.

"Their new leader must be a barbarian," Reaper complained, answering the unspoken question, "The leader’s Keith Salt and he’s the only one who could have done that. The boy’s blind in one eye and can't shoot for shit. But he's got brass knuckles and a mean streak. In the old days their leader was a fat old girl who amiably shot the steering wheel out of my truck while I was driving it, at a distance of about half a damn mile."

"What else did you find?" Soldier passed lightly over the character analysis, gossip, and fond old memories.

Reaper stooped to pull up some of the plastic casing he'd carried from the water. "Looks like packing."

Hanzo's heart skipped a beat, and his raked his gaze over every piece as it was shown off. The casings had been molded carefully around something huge and sleek. Something Hanzo knew the shape of extremely well. The case the weapon had been shipped in. The Deadlock symbol had been all over it… and the other one. But the second symbol wasn't there. Reaper couldn't have missed it—but of course he hadn’t missed the symbol. He’d deliberately left it out. Reaper relied on secrets and half truths for power. Hanzo hesitated, then plunged in.

"That's packing from an anti-omnic AI fast response mech," he said flatly.

"Anti-omnic AI sounds like an oxymoron." Mei cocked her head.

Hanzo couldn't help but reflected on the linguistics of the Greek oxus and moron. The thoughts drew him to picture McCree. He noticed Reaper's mask was turned towards him.

"It was developed by the Shimada Clan," he admitted.

Reaper shrugged, robbed of the opportunity to make that showy discovery public, and Mercy and Reinhardt both looked at him in surprise. Mei covered her mouth.

"My family began the new weapon's development shortly before..." Hanzo didn't look at Mercy though it cost him. "Before Genji died. It was one of many things that drove him from the clan."

"If that technology exists, it would be everywhere," Reinhardt, the kind, straightforward warrior, was totally unsuited for the intrigues and greed of the criminal world.

"The Shimada are aware they possess technology which could combat the omnic ‘crisis’. They're not prepared to part with it for less then they demand. And they are never going to demand less than what people can afford," Hanzo said stiffly. He was perfectly aware of the dwindling resources of his former clan. He had played no small part in diminishing them when he left with a sizable portion after his brother's death.

"So the Deadlock Gang have a robot. Capable of killing omnics as well as people?" Soldier said, in the tone of voice of someone waiting for the punchline.

"It was tested in Korea, and demonstrated to a few of the highest bidders on the Omnic aggressors in that country. The mech outperformed all expectations, and the bidding more than tripled. It can level an omnic giant." Hanzo scowled. “They’re custom made to order, and only two or three had ever been made, since the Shimada aren’t careless enough to give a weapon like that out freely and attract unwanted attention. I believe those that have been released are used for private security.”

"Alright," Soldier said in the same reasonable tone, "This just became a far bigger problem."

"They needed McCree," Hanzo said, and suddenly remembered why. The Shimada couldn't, or wouldn't, create an indiscriminate killing machine: that had never been their style or their forte. "It can only be given a target to pursue and destroy once it has their ID code, radiation signature, or a specific DNA sample."

Soldier’s face plate turned towards Hanzo. "Your clan built an assassin."

Hanzo nodded.

"McCree has all the information he needs to target the everyone in Overwatch," Reaper growled. "This just became a kill squad."

 

* * *

 

They went south after that. Winston contacted them on the emergency channel to tell them everyone was fortified at Gibraltar, and took the news of the Shimada mech with a heavy sigh before sharing his own discoveries.

McCree had been one of over 413 members of the Deadlock Gang who received an email from the second in command, Jude Forsythe. It had been carefully worded and partly in code, but Athena was able to identify a list of locations and times, safe routes and caches. Winston had advised local authorities on those locations, and they were already scooping up unsuspecting gang members and arresting them.

The last location was on the Eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea somewhere, and Reaper had nodded, knowing where to go.

It seemed that the Deadlock Gang was consolidating their resources swiftly, and recklessly, in Hanzo's opinion. As his team traveled south, he had to wonder if the gang being startled out of their shipyard had spooked them, or if they'd always been this wild.

It would explain a few things about McCree if that was the case.

At least McCree was alive. If he was dead, they would have left his body to the river, like the blond haired, wild eyed second in command their leader had beaten to death. Hanzo mulled on that as well. The man had picked at a loaded gun for a nervous tick, and now his body was drifting in the torn out belly of an abandoned ship in cold, brackish water. But McCree wasn't. He had to be alive.

McCree hadn't wanted to come back to these people. Hanzo would never believe that. He refused to think that McCree would have wanted to return to so violent and wild and reckless a group.

Unless he thought there was no point in staying, Hanzo's treacherous inner voice whispered. Unless he thought he was actually going to be better off.

"Reyes isn't going to make this easy," Soldier said unexpectedly.

They were standing lookout over the long stretch of red, rocky land from an ancient wall, up to a small fort tunnelled into the side of a mountain. One of Deadlock Gang's hastily seized hide-outs listed in their group email. Mei and Reaper had gone in to scout the place out, while Reinhardt and Mercy stood a little way back, ready to charge in to help in the event of any action.

"Will you be able to complete this mission?" Soldier went on.  He was facing back the way they'd come, while Hanzo stared up towards the fort.

Hanzo made no answer, and Soldier sighed and shifted uneasily.

"If you don't think you can kill McCree before he gives a robot assassin a roadmap to kill us," Soldier said after Hanzo continued silent, "we need to call Widowmaker."

"Don't call Widowmaker," Hanzo said.

"That's not an answer," Soldier shook his head briefly, and shifted his grip on his blaster. "McCree's got our number, literally."

"We have his," Hanzo said, and the harshness of his tone surprised him. Suddenly the fury he hadn't noticed was almost too hot for his skin. The dragons stirred and bared their teeth. Hanzo bared his and went on, "You cast him aside so readily. Are you really so sure he will betray us? Why are you so sure he's going to justify your fears?"

Soldier was quiet for a moment, then squared his shoulders: a quick, involuntary movement, like Winston rubbing his arms like a gorilla instead of a scientist. A soldier taking refuge in familiar poses learned when his officers commanded his thoughts and actions.

"No, I don't think he is," Soldier said, and the words surprised Hanzo. "But I don't know how much he knows. I don't know if he understands what it will mean if he gives up our information. I don't know if he can withstand torture."

That was a thought that hadn't occurred to Hanzo and his jaw tightened.

"Unless we can destroy the AI, we have to destroy the only person Deadlock can use to activate it against us," Soldier said.

The reasoning was frustratingly straightforward: narrow, simple, and infallible. Soldier seemed to see the world in a series of if-then-else statements.

Hanzo frowned. "Did Reyes try to kill you before?"

Again the unintended shift into the basic pose for a young soldier ready to follow orders. Simpler times when he didn't have to wonder about things like this, when anyone under the rank of Sergeant couldn't ask a question.

"This isn't like that time," Soldier said quietly. "You're not like him, or me. You're going to have to make a shot and kill him before he gives that AI our information."

Hanzo saw Mei and Reaper emerge from the fort up the hill, and start picking their way down towards them.

"We know where they're headed!" Mei's voice came over the com.

Soldier began giving out the orders to move in. Mercy and Reinhardt relaxed, Mei and Reaper rejoined them and plans for the approaching the Deadlock Gang’s final hiding place began formalizing.

Hanzo thought of the arrow head tied out of sight around his arm. Thought of McCree's serape around him as they stood together in the darkness of the ship’s forepeak. Thought of all the times McCree had been close enough to touch, even casually, and Hanzo hadn't, and now it was all he wanted.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art in this chapter by jamiekinosian! ( jamiekinosian.tumblr.com/ ) Go check them out! They were a total rockstar and very patient with me <3

Deadlock set up in a little resort that had been a good place for holidaymakers on the Adriatic before the war. It was where they’d brought everything they could salvage from the shipyard, where they’d finished the weapon. The mech had been nicknamed Sundown, and it stood six feet tall at the shoulder on four legs, built more like a lizard than a cat, though it reminded McCree of both.

He'd watched it run the night they arrived: its long carbon fibre body streching and flexing around the olive trees and overgrown gardens, racing faster than an omnic, faster than D.Va could boost or Reinhardt could charge. Much, much faster than Tracer could run or Lucio could skate. It caught the few drones Keith had ordered for testing so quickly, Keith actually sent a party out to look for other things Sundown could destroy.

Half of his search party had been arrested by police, who had been unusually alert in the area, but the other half had come back with four cars, two transport trucks, three motorcycles, two scooters, and a decommissioned tank that predated the omnic crisis. Keith promptly promoted the woman who'd stolen the tank, and set Sundown on the small armada as soon as he'd rigged them to drive themselves around randomly at speed.

The Deadlock Gang were in their element. A betting book was hastily drawn up and money changed hands at rapid fire rates as Sundown went to work. The courtyard of the little resort faces up the hill towards the mountains, and it was packed with people cheering and howling with excitement as Sundown ran. McCree stood among them, watching as Sundown tore the machines apart, and made the fortunes of people who bet in it’s favor.

McCree thought of Reinhardt's armour tearing open. Thought of Zarya's head fitting into those huge, saw-edged jaws. Sundown scaled vertical surfaces at a run, moved almost totally silently, and could booster-jump to fly over short distances. No one was going to be safe from this thing.

It was in the air when McCree looked up at it and realized, of course, this was a product of the Shimada clan. It was a dragon.

In that moment he recognized why Genji had opposed his family so adamantly. Sundown was beautiful and powerful and bit through the scooters and shrugged off the barrage from the tank. It breathed fire and saw through walls and it was a perfect, unhesitating slave.

That night, the night before the end of Overwatch, Sundown lay like a sphynx in the courtyard overlooking the olive orchard. Its last act of the day had been to tear the tank apart, bite through massive munitions to disarm it, and then lope out of the resulting explosion, slow, and bowed before Keith.

McCree had to walk past it to join the ever-present poker game that could be found in Deadlock Gang hideouts everywhere. He depressed himself watching how clumsily the others cheated, disgusted at the shocking drop in standards. When he had been a kid in the gang, the cheating had been the real game, the cards only their media. Too sorry to correct them or take their money, and unable to shake the feeling Sundown was watching him, he lost most of the credits he'd brought with him and walked the long way around the buildings to avoid the mech on his way to bed.

He lay on his back on the scrappy mattress he'd claimed, and wondered if things had been better in the old days, or if it had always been like this, and he just knew better now. He blew smoke from his last cigar towards the ceiling and decided it had always been this bad, he'd just been a moron before. If it had been good, the beauty of the jacaranda tree in the spring wouldn't have awed him. The casual observances to polite and social conduct of the other members of Overwatch wouldn't have touched him. The loss of his friends in the organization that raised him wouldn't have broken him more than the loss of his arm. Meeting Hanzo wouldn't have felt like a gift, a resolution. Hanzo wouldn't have made him sure that it was worthwhile to sabotage and betray his old gang so thoroughly.

"One more day," McCree whispered, one hand over his heart, over the golden scarf he'd taken from Hanzo. He wished to god he'd get to see Hanzo again. Just once more. Apologize and explain and annoy the hell out of him by gathering that compact, lethal body into his arms and kissing him. Wouldn't happen, never would have, and McCree knew the moments in the ship with Hanzo in his arms had been a gift. His last. And he’d only gotten that because he was a thief and a scoundrel and an outlaw and stolen it like the scarf.

He fell asleep late, too late; he was so tired, and he knew exactly what the next day would bring. The room pitched around him like a rolling ship;he felt cold and sick and woke himself shaking every hour. When he did sleep, he dreamt of Hanzo falling, wide-eyed and terrified. Dreamt of running after him, straight down the wall, faster than Hanzo could fall, gaining on him. McCree reached out, panic hot and acrid in his mouth, unable to breathe for fear. He caught Hanzo bodily in his wide jaws, bounded downwards on four huge steel paws, and bit Hanzo in half.

 

* * *

 

Hanzo watched, feeling slightly sick as the long, familiar steel body of the Shimada's most obedient dragon tore an entire tank apart. The resulting explosion shook the tree he perched in, and sent out a wall of sound that made him flinch. Serenely unaffected, the lithe, black metal beast walked out of the fire and twisted metal, and bent its head to the man standing next to McCree.

Mei and Reaper were scouting the flanks again, with Mercy and Reinhardt on hand to charge in to help them. Soldier and Hanzo stayed away up the mountainside, where they had watched the mech rip apart everything that had been set against it.

"You know of anything that can kill that thing?" Soldier asked. The angle of his rifle was a little slack, as though he had already recognized how useless it would be. That, if nothing else, made Hanzo aware of how many times Jack Morrison had faced death. This time, he didn't seem up for a fight.

"No," Hanzo replied. The Shimada had been pretty thorough when they’d tested the anti-omnic AI. Short of collapsing a building over it in an explosion or plunging it to the bottom of the sea or running an improbable amount of voltage through it. It was going to go on with its ordered objective.

They watched as the sun set and fires began burning in the old resort building. It had been beautiful, and probably lavishly luxurious at one point, but the Omnic Crisis had touched here, too. Part of the building had been torn open and gutted by fire, the once lovely gardens and orchards had become overgrown, and the marina and docks had collapsed. Abandoned yachts lay on the seabed, their masts jutting ludicrously from the water at odd angles. It was lovely, despite the horror here, and Hanzo felt sick to look at the fresh pits and fires on the mountainsides where the dragon had been set on its rampage.

"They call it Sundown," Mei said when she and Reaper had returned. "Did it come with that name, Hanzo?"

Hanzo shook his head, and they spent the night creeping as close as they could to the huge mech, and its apparent honour guard of outlaws playing poker beside it.

Hanzo watched McCree lose at poker for the first time in memory, and leave early, saying little. He tried to track McCree through the building, tried to guess where he was now. How Hanzo could find him. It was useless, and he knew it, but he still felt hollowed out from unfamiliar, sick anxiety.  There was a tense feeling in his chest, urging him to drop what he was doing and go to him, find him, right now, and this time, not leave until McCree was safe.

"Easy, Hanzo," Soldier murmured beside him. “Place is stacked with Deadlock people.”

Hanzo turned his glare to Soldier but it was wasted; the man's visor wasn't even facing him. Slowly, he took a breath, and realized his knuckles had gone white on Storm Bow. He'd abandoned his watch on Sundown to stare after McCree. Furious with himself, and more furious that Soldier had noticed his attention slipping, he spent the remainder of his watch silently fuming and keeping rigid watch on the Dragon.

When Mei and Rein came to relieve their watch, Hanzo silently went into the darkness amid the olive trees and settled down alone. He knelt, head bowed, one hand gripping his other arm at the place where he'd tied the arrowhead McCree had pushed into his hands. Better than an explanation, better than a letter or an announcement, or any declaration. McCree knew that Hanzo couldn't hurt him. And he'd told Hanzo of that certainty. And now they were in this impossible situation.

Something soft and smooth ran up along his cheek, and he startled, opening his eyes to find both the little dragons on his lap.

“They’ll see you,” Hanzo whispered. He shut his stinging eyes against their glow.

The dragons ignored him, and both pushed their heads against his face, past his ear. They ringed his neck, rustled through his hair, and then settled, one on each shoulder, pressing their cheeks up under his jaw. Hidden in his loose hair, no one would see them, and Hanzo didn’t care anymore if anyone did. He stroked their silky bodies with the backs of his fingers, and they purred as he whispered to them in their shared mother tongue.

He slept, eventually, quieted by the dragons and their purring, and woke shuddering from nightmares that left him shaking and sweating in the cold predawn. The dragons were gone, back to the tattoo, and he sat stubbornly shivering without complaint. Reaper and Mercy sat through the last of their watch over the resort while the others slept lightly in their little shelter among the low trees up the mountain.

Sundown still lay like a statue, its long body streaming in elegant curves, its four paws flat on the ground, knees held bent in readiness. And McCree was standing at its head.

Hanzo hadn't noticed when McCree had arrived in the darkness of the courtyard below. He could have been standing there for a little while, and only now the light around them was enough to catch sight of him. Hanzo blinked, his heart jerking and he tensed as though to spring down to him.

McCree had been beaten; there were bruises a few days old, and Hanzo's gut tightened, remembering the low, snarling voices in the bow of the ship. Remembered running away without McCree and leaving him to these violent, stupid servants of a violent, clever man.

He wasn't doing that again.

Their leader arrived shortly after, and McCree's hand slipped from Sundown's head. The courtyard below them slowly began to fill, outlaws yawning and carrying steaming mugs in the early, Mediterranean spring chill.

"Wake the others," Reaper growled, not looking away from the group assembling below them. "And get ready."

They moved down cautiously, fanning out so they were close enough to hear: Hanzo and Reaped directly facing the courtyard, Reinhardt and Mercy on one flank, Mei and Soldier on the other.

"Hope you're ready," Reaper's voice was too soft to carry past Hanzo who perched out of sight on a low wall around the orchard, only twenty metres or so from Sundown's long body. "Once McCree orders us dead, we're not going to last long."

Hanzo ignored him.

The group gathering around Sundown was surprisingly small, possibly only fifty or so. He'd expected a crowd. Hanzo knew the local police and Interpol had been having more luck than usual scooping up members of the gang thanks to Winston's mining McCree's email. The indiscriminate second in command had continued to send out instructions and locations, too easily passed on to local authorities when safe to do so. But even so, the group around the metal dragon looked small, and oddly lean, in a way that looked like fear had become a familiar part of their day.

"You should have made a move sooner," Reaper's voice drifted like smoke over his shoulder. "You could have made an honest man out of him, and maybe he wouldn't have run."

Hanzo let out a breath and willed himself to think in his native tongue, trying to block out Reaper's words.

"He wanted you too," Reaper went on, "looks like he settled for this boy though."

The leader was talking in a low snarl to his men, McCree standing next to him with his usual ease, though something was off, his breath too quick and shallow, too much tension in his shoulders. The leader's hand was gripping McCree's shoulder, up high at his neck, though McCree didn't seem to notice, he was focused on Sundown.

"Did he ever ask, Hanzo? He ever ask you to hold onto him like that? He's always responded well to a strong hand," Reaper went on.

"How did you respond to Jack Morrison's hand?" Hanzo replied.

Reaper let out a furious hiss, rounding on Hanzo, but below them, the leader turned to Sundown and snapped out a command.

"Rise," the single word went out clearly, and echoed slightly around the mountainside.

The huge creature stood up, fluid and seamless, going from inanimate to a lithe, coiled killer in a blink.

"Alright, Jess," the leader said, tucking his thumbs into his belt and leaning back slightly, ready. "Start at the top."

"Shoot him," Reaper hissed, all teasing gone. "Hanzo, kill him.”

Hanzo's hands automatically notched an arrow and had it to half draw before he stopped himself. McCree knew what he was doing.

"Ana Amari," McCree said, he listed a long number, and Sundown nodded its huge head once. "Bastion,  SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54." A radiation code this time, and again the nod, "D.Va, Hana Song."

"Hanzo," Reaper snarled, "you have a job to do. You have to defend us. You don't get to let your little crush get us all killed."

Hanzo couldn’t move. The arrow head tied above his elbow out of sight felt hot against his skin.

“Hold,” Soldier snapped over the comm.

“Jack,” Reaper snarled back, dropping the call sign.

“Hold,” Soldier said, his voice could have bent iron, “It’s Hanzo’s call.”

McCree slowly went down the list of the heroes of Overwatch. Hanzo stopped breathing when Genji's name was listed, an ID and radiation signature fed into the huge dragon. The ID hit him like slap, and he felt weak suddenly, panic rising in him. He pulled the arrow back in a response that came straight from bewildered agony.

 

 

But it was too late, much too late.

"Lúcio Correia dos Santos," McCree said. He stood without moving, a long number for each of their IDs, their radiation signatures, each piece of information memorized and ready. Flatly giving his friends into death one at a time.

"How many of us are you going to let him kill?" Reaper hissed. "You're not going to get to fuck him once you're dead either."

“Reaper, shut it,” Soldier said, his voice was low over the comms.

“Soldier, if you have anything to share with the team. . .” Mercy said, using her doctor voice. The trained calm of doctors who tell wild and frantic families bad news.

“Hold,” Soldier said, and that was an order. “Hanzo knows what to do.”

From the corner of his eye, Hanzo could see Reaper wraithing out in anger or panic. There was a small group down there, but still too many for him to take on, even with the others coordinating their attack. Fifty or sixty members of Deadlock, McCree, their leader, and the greatest accumulation of lethal force ever condensed into a carbon fibre body was all much too much to take on.

"Symmetra, Satya Vaswani," McCree was near the end of the list.

Hanzo was shaking. The bow at full draw was a familiar weight but he was holding it too long. Unable to let go. He'd known McCree wouldn't betray them. McCree had been terrified, but he said he knew what he was doing. McCree had hugged him too tightly and wouldn't let him go and pressed his face into Hanzo's neck and whispered his name like a prayer. Hanzo had the arrow head. McCree couldn't betray them.

"Zenyatta," McCree finished the list, listed a radiation signature and took a breath that looked like a struggle.

Hanzo felt numb. He slowly released the tension on the string, eased the arrow back into rest and sank down on both knees, staring down at McCree. Beside him, Reaper was digging the claws of his gauntlets into the old stone of the wall, head down, hissing in fury.

It was over. Hanzo thought blankly. The arrowhead felt heavy on his arm. All over.

"You're forgetting someone," the leader prompted.

"What's that?" McCree sounded tired. He picked his hat off his head and ran a hand through his hair before settling his hat back down. For a second, his face was out of sight to everyone but Hanzo, who was watching, waiting.

Hanzo tensed.

"Athena," Their leader prompted. "You couldn't shut up about how secure she was."

Even Athena, Hanzo felt one more stone land on the cairn over his certainty about McCree. Then shook himself. No one in the gang seemed to be watching McCree. They were watching their leader, and their leader was watching the patient Sundown. Only Hanzo was watching McCree, and Hanzo had spent a lot of time watching McCree.

Reaper startled slightly as Hanzo went back to shooting stance in one fluid motion.

"Too late now," Reaper hissed.

Yes, probably, Hanzo thought. But...

"Athena," McCree said, he looked down slightly, his hat over his eyes and Hanzo drew the arrow back to his cheek in one easy motion, ready.

Ready for... What? Hanzo scowled, uncertain and confused, but there was something more here.

McCree knew what he was doing.

"Athena," McCree said, "an AI. You take this target out first you hear; this one has priority. You don't move on anything until this one's destroyed."

Sundown nodded, and McCree listed a long alphanumeric code Hanzo lost track of almost at once.

Sundown nodded in submission and understanding.

"That's it?" their leader said. "That's Athena? Their security?"

"Security, digital data, records keeper, base operations, Athena's their whole home," McCree nodded, and stepped back. Moving in the easy, disarming movements that didn't fool Hanzo anymore.  

But fooled everyone else.

Their leader turned to Sundown, and no one was watching McCree except Hanzo, who couldn't breathe.

Then the order came out, a quick bark that made a few people on the ground below flinch.  "Execute."

Sundown came to life as startling as a lightning bolt. It breathed a puff of fire, shook it's carbon fibre mane and bowed low to the Deadlock Gang's leader.

Then it turned, faster than a whip strike, jaws wide and trailing fire. It bit into its own midsection, and tore itself apart.

The scream and crack of breaking carbon, fire roaring while steel shrieked against steel, seemed to go on and on. The elegant dragon slashed and tore and twisted into itself, savagely attacking everything it could reach, moving with a desperation that became pathetic as it sought to destroy every part of itself.

It lasted only three seconds or so.

And in that time, Hanzo had lost tension in his bow string again, the bow once again at rest in his hands. He stared open mouthed down at destruction below him.

The Deadlock’s leader had both his hands up, frozen in horror. So were the rest of the Deadlock gang. Presumably so was Reaper.

McCree looked at the leader, let out a sigh, and smiled.

“There,” Soldier breathed softly over the comm. “Hanzo knew what to do.”

Suddenly the ease became genuine in the set of McCree’s shoulders, the casual way he stood holding his belt. His chin came up a little. Hanzo hoped he wasn't the only one watching McCree now.

"Jess," The leader said, in a voice that sounded like a man who'd just seen something impossible, "that was the only weapon we were ever going to need. It was our answer to anyone. That fuckin thing's supposed to be heading to Watchpoint Gibraltar.

"Lemme tell you something, fellas," McCree drawled.

Hanzo's heart suddenly thudded with relief. Here was McCree, his McCree, smiling with his head cocked, hands on his belt. Everyone's eyes on him.

McCree grinned wide, "It’s not going anywhere."


	6. Chapter 6

Sundown sparked and twitched in its weak, flailing death throws.

Keith seemed close to collapsing beside his fallen weapon, his mouth hanging open, "What the fuck did you do to me?"

"Nothin’," McCree said easily. “Nothing you didn’t let me get on with.”

His little smirk made Hanzo smile without realizing.  

"You gave me a lot of room to run," McCree went on. "Letting me give out the kill orders, wasn't going to miss a chance like that. Only three people in the world know the ID codes of these little critters, but you best believe I made friends with one years before I lined up the purchase of this poor bastard." McCree shrugged.

Genji, Hanzo realized, suddenly the reason for his brothers strange quiet at McCree's disappearance became apparent. But of course, Genji had been working to dismantle the Shimadas for years. He’d have been McCrees in to buy the weapon, and given McCree what he’d needed to destroy it.

The rest of the gang began to wake from stunned, disbelieving shock into hurt anger.

"You, you _planned_ this," their leader was shaking, sounding as bewildered as a child. "You, Jess, the Gang went flat damn broke buying this."

"Sure," McCree said promptly. "I told a friend months ago what you had in reserve and made sure a little more then that was what the Shimadas asked. You noticed how many people aren't here, by the way? You think that's chance? Keith old boy, Jude's been sending meeting times and places to the entire gang. After I bailed without telling anyone, you best believe Overwatch got my correspondence wide open. And I knew they've been checking out what Jude’s been sending them and everyone else with a fine tooth comb."

"Jude..." Keith was still reeling, looking from the broken, twisted wreckage of Sundown to McCree and back.

McCree just smiled, and Hanzo gasped in a breath of relief. There he was. McCree was right there, and he was fine, and he hadn't betrayed them, he was still Hanzo's, there was still time.

Something inside Sundown exploded mildly, and Keith flinched, then seemed to pull himself together, snapping his attention to McCree. Suddenly he was the most terrifying thing in the courtyard.

"You took Jude's account, you fed my people to Overwatch," Keith snarled.

"Sure did, one at a time, like little lambs. They're too scared of you, Keith: don't want to disobey, even when they knew it wouldn't be safe to break their cover. They'd almost rather get caught than risk you getting mad at em." McCree didn't move as Keith began walking slowly forwards: he stood very still, watching him. "I robbed you blind, Keith, took your money, your toy, and your people. Hell, the only gang you got left is right here. And best part is, old boy, you made sure I could do every part of it."

"You all hold real still," Keith growled; he was staring at McCree but the words were for the outlaws scattered around them. Those that had been reaching for weapons froze. "You all leave McCree to me."

Keith, the reckless leader of the Deadlock Gang, blind in one eye and didn't use a gun, was going to fight McCree. Hanzo settled back. McCree had said he knew what he was doing and he did. He even had Peacekeeper back. Keith was about to die here in the cool first light of the Adriatic dawn right next to his fallen dragon.

“Hanzo,” Reaper said quietly. Hanzo ignored him.

"Why the hell you do it, Jess?" Keith asked, and for the first time, Hanzo noticed the years between them. Keith must have been a boy when McCree had been running in the forefront of the the gang, before Overwatch.

"You offered me a place in the gang," McCree said. There was a scrape in his voice, then McCree was talking with real anger. "You asked for help, you offered me money and when I wouldn't budge you offered me a place here, at your side. What the hell did you think, Keith? You think I wanted this life? You think I wanted you or your stupid plans or the fear mongering and the scraping by? You're a damn fool. You thought you were doing me a favor.”  

McCree shook his head, still standing easy, hands at his belt, head tipped back a little to talk down to Keith. That had been it, the offense that had set McCree on fire and lit the way to this place, at this time.

"You think Overwatch tore me out of Deadlock?" He went on, "You think I fought tooth and nail to stay in the gang? Lemme set you right on that one. Gabriel Reyes gave me a choice and I threw myself at his damn feet and begged to be taken away. He never let me live it down either.”

Hanzo felt more then saw Reaper move suddenly behind him. The hard, aborted gesture of a man reaching to cover his face before he stopped himself.

“Overwatch was my home,” McCree went on, “and I was a damn fool, but I knew how to survive and Deadlock was a good little ace in the hole, a good place to find some money, get some information. I farmed your little gang for both, kept you small, kept you close, and kept you in check for all the years I was away. Should have broken you apart the moment I could have, but I knew no one at Overwatch trusted me, and thought maybe there was going to be a day when having Deadlock's money wouldn't be a bad thing to fall back on. I could always take it from you."

"Like hell," Keith snarled. "It's my gang, I built us up!"

"Who the hell you think got you out of prison when you got caught?" McCree shrugged, "Made sure you made it back in time to lead your coup. I knew you'd be the only leader I could control, Keith. You always did have me in the apple of your eye and I used that. You didn't know the only reason you were still allowed to run around was as my personal insurance against Overwatch's distrust.”

Hanzo heard Mercy hiss softly over the comm, and Reinhardt moved very slightly, the noise of his armor filtering through.

“Then you offered me a place here.” McCree said it with a little shake of the head as though incredulous. “You thought I'd want to come back, and live as a lackey. Feed my friends into your insane ideas? Knew you were batshit crazy right then and there. And as long as you were in control, you were too dangerous to let run wild. I had to put you down in a big way when you targeted Overwatch. That’s my family, son."

“Hanzo, draw, now,” Reaper said he said it quietly and there was a strain in his voice.

Hanzo shook his head slightly. McCree knew what he was doing.

Keith's mouth was a flat line, and his fists were clenched at his sides. Then he snarled, "Gimme your gun, I know you got one on you."

Oh sure, Hanzo thought, looking forward to this fight, he'll give you everything he's got.

Wordlessly, and with the unaffected ease, McCree drew Peacekeeper from under his serape, and unhesitatingly passed it to Keith.

Hanzo blinked.

"Hanzo, take aim," Reaper said, and his voice held a note of urgency Hanzo had never heard before.

"Spent too long in two worlds didn't you McCree," Keith opened the cylinder, checked the barrel and the hammer, and snapped the gun into place.

"You're not wrong," McCree agreed amiably.

"Hanzo, draw," Reaper said again. "Kill Keith, now."

"You knew damn well you couldn't go back to Overwatch after this didn't you," Keith said, and raised Peacemaker. The tip of the muzzle was almost flat against McCree's chest plate.

"I’m alright with this being the end of the line. You don’t get that do you? You never had anyone you were willing to die to protect.” McCree said, and smiled.

Hanzo was at half draw, swinging Storm Bow up to aim, already springing up to his feet, his heart stopped beating, he couldn’t breath.

Peacekeeper spoke in the silence. One shot, at point blank range, where even a half blind man who never used a gun couldn't possibly miss.

Hanzo had the arrow to his cheek, and fired. He was in the air, jumping from his perch down the mountain, unable to say the words, call the dragons, unable to do anything, too late, useless.

But the dragons came anyway, unbidden, and came roaring out of him with all the rage and desperation he couldn't give voice to. They came huge, and savage, moving faster than he'd ever seen, crackling with light and racing forward. Hanzo saw Keith look up in total bewilderment, and the arrow took him in the eye. The dragon's engulfed him a moment later, and McCree's falling body, and the twisted remains of Sundown, and the knot of frozen, terrified gang members behind them.

They screamed and scattered, more than half of them mowed down by the furious dragons and Hanzo saw the survivors scatter left and right, where he knew Soldier and Mei would catch them on one side, and Mercy and Reinhardt would meet them on the other.

But he didn't think of that, didn't care, because McCree's body hadn't hit the stones of the courtyard yet, and Hanzo had to get to him, had to reach him in time.

His hands fisted in warm red wool, Storm Bow clattered on the stones as he forgot about it, and McCree's hat dropped away. Hanzo fell to his knees with McCree draped across him.

"McCree," Hanzo snapped, gathering the man up and tugging him more firmly into his lap. "McCree, answer me."

The chestplate was shattered, the hole at it's centre welling with blood. McCree's eyelashes fluttered and he didn't breath, and Hanzo bent over McCree, reaching across him to gather in the red serape and drag the two of them together.

"Come home," Hanzo whispered, his eyes were shut tight, and he found he was rocking slightly in panic, cradling McCree to him, "Let’s go home, McCree."

"Sunshine?" McCree's voice, feather soft, and Hanzo wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been cradling McCree so close.

Hanzo caught his breath and sat back slightly.

He found McCree blinking at him, sad and confused. He was dying, Hanzo realized with a jerk, he'd seen those dreamy eyes before. Genji had looked just as resigned.

"You found me," McCree said in a small voice, too soft. "Found me again Sunshine."

"Stay with me," Hanzo begged, the words tumbling desperately out of his mouth, "I found you again, don't make me come for you a third time. It's alright now, we're going home."

"The dragons," McCree whispered, "Saw the dragons, I had nightmares you know, thought they'd kill me, but they didn't hurt, you'd never hurt me."

"No," Hanzo agreed, "I couldn't, you knew I couldn't."

"I'm sorry," McCree breathed, "So sorry Hanzo, lived too long like Gabe, thought secrets were better, should have told you, should have told everyone. I'm sorry."

"They'll understand, they’re here, they know," Hanzo could feel McCree shaking in his arms, and he held him tighter, like he could hold McCree's broken body together.

"I knew you wouldn't hurt me," McCree whispered, "Knew I'd be able to use the code for Sundown, only after everyone else. No one else would have let me, Amelie would have killed me, and Ana, but not you."

"No, not me," Hanzo was bent low over McCree again, hungry for the heat and weight and reassuring presence of his body, and terrified that this was the end of it all.

"I'm sorry, it’s lot on you," McCree flinched suddenly, the pain taking him.

Hanzo clutched him tighter. "Don't go," he said stupidly. "Please, I should have told you before, don't go, don't leave me."

"I’m not asking you to come with me this time," McCree said between his teeth, his body had gone tense and tight in Hanzo's arms.

Suddenly, Hanzo became aware of the battle around them. He could hear the clatter of Soldier's rifle, Reinhardt was roaring as his hammer thudded into bodies. He'd never felt more powerless or alone. The others couldn't come to them until the last of the opposition, still outnumbering them, had been put down before they could coordinate a counter attack. They were fighting for their lives and Jesse McCree was dying in his arms.

"So stay," Hanzo insisted.

"Can't, if you'd asked me before I would have, you know? Hanzo, I never said, never had the guts to say before but i should have. I fell in love with you, Hanzo, sure as anything, right from the start."

Hanzo couldn't breath again, he was trying to hold McCree together, hold him tight enough his soul couldn't escape. "I didn't see, I didn't... I should have."

"Outlaw like me didn't have too many hopes to be kept by a lord like you," McCree whispered, he was still smiling, incredibly, looking up into Hanzo's face and studying it. The last thing he'd ever see.

"I'll keep you," Hanzo promised, "Stay and I'll keep you."

"Shoot," McCree let out a shaking breath, and his hand settled over Hanzo's, where it pressed flat to the ruined plate of his chest armour. "Really? Thought... I mean, thought you'd never... That I wanted so bad I was loosing my mind over it."

"Love you," Hanzo could hardly get the words out, he needed McCree alive, needed him whole and safe and away from here, "So stay, please, McCree, please stay."

"Can't," McCree breathed, "Sunshine, I'm so sorry. Damn fool I am, I thought of everything but this."

"Please, I should have saved you, I could have," Hanzo didn't realize he was crying until he saw a tear splash onto McCree's cheek. He gasped, struggling not to sob, and pressed his hand a little harder over the bloody hole in McCree's armor, "It's my fault, please McCree hold onto me."

"Hanzo, kiss me, please, don't want to die..." McCree whispered.

He would have said more, the words struggling one over the other but Hanzo tipped his head and kissed McCree's bloody mouth. It shocked him, the heat, and desperation and Hanzo loved him so much he couldn't breath.

"Shoot," McCree breathed, his lips brushing on Hanzo's, "Didn't see that coming."

"I should have," Hanzo admitted. He should have seen all of this. Should have stopped it. Should have listened to McCree.

He pressed another kiss into McCree, slightly wild and self indulgent, hungry and sorry. His tears dropped from his matted lashes to McCree's cheeks, and he felt McCree's hand tighten on his wrist.

"Stay," Hanzo whispered. He butted their foreheads gently together, rocking them in the cool dawn light in the middle of a courtyard strewn with bodies. "Stay with me," His voice broke.

"I'm sorry, so sorry, please, Hanzo, don't cry." McCree whispered. He brought one hand up, weakly stroking into Hanzo's loose hair, and he began to sing, very softly, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine... Make me happy, when skies are grey, you'll never know dear how much I love you, please..."

"Stay," Hanzo breathed, his eyes were shut and his tears dripped from his face onto McCree's, "Please, I love you, I could have gone with you, I gave you your gun, I could have stopped him. Please, don't go after I've been so foolish. Please."

Somewhere to his right, he heard Soldier cry out in pain, the sound cut off as though he was dead before he hit the ground. On his other side, Reinhardt was roaring wildly, and he couldn't hear Mei or Mercy or Reaper. He could hear the crack and chatter of the last free, surviving members of a gun-running gang fighting for their lives.

"Don't take my sunshine..." McCree's voice was breath-soft now, trailing off at the ends of words.

"Please," Hanzo whispered.

 

* * *

 

The tree was a mangy, half dead thing when McCree had arrived at Gibraltar the first time. In his youth, he'd been familiar with tough cacti or succulents, and the baked, rocky expanse of the plateaus and plains. So of course, the green bowl at the headland of Gibraltar Island looked like a miracle. With wide-eyed wonder, young McCree had sat among prickly, overgrown blue-green bushes, huge ruffled flowers, a few skinny trees and in heavy green grass to stare out at the open waters of the mediterranean for hours at a stretch.

He'd come to learn the bushes were juniper, and the flowers mostly marigolds, and the trees a scruffy assortment of cork, laurel, a maple and a sad little thing with feathery leaves he couldn't identify. He'd liked that one most, it seemed like a fighter that just needed a chance. Like him.

When he came home from a mission with a bad knock to the head and prescribed inaction, he'd been driven to take to the little headland with the only remotely suitable tools for what he vaguely had in mind. He'd spend his twenty days of recovery cutting back the juniper bushes, pruning the cork and the shaggy maple, and fighting with the laurel and it's thorns. The feathery tree, looking small in it's winter state, looked sickly to his eye, and he plyed it with anything his online searches said would help.

Something must have aided it, or free from the encroaching juniper for the spring, it awoke, spread it's green leaves, and between one visit and the next, erupted into a cloud of delicate, bell shaped purple blooms that stopped McCree short when he saw it and left his mouth hanging open. The tree had become as soft and lovely as anything McCree had ever seen before, and he lay for hours, feeling drunk with wonder and beauty under boughs of feathery green leaves and delicate purple blossoms.

In his description later to the doctor, she had finally been able to tell him what it was. A jacaranda tree. They had been prized in the decades before, when Gibralter had been a peninsula of British territory, and not an island half blasted into the sea by omnics and fortified into a watchpoint by Overwatch. Mercy had assumed that the trees must have been lucky feral things to grow up as chance brought their seeds by wind or birds, but the jacaranda was often ornamental, and usually needed care. The doc suggested that the bowl at the headland must have been a garden planted at some point in the past, before the watchpoint had been established.

McCree agreed, and privately suspected the garden to be older than that. In the following summer, he read an arborists textbook for advice, bought some half decent tools, and drove the juniper back until it no longer choked out the trees. The maple and the cork flourished, the jacaranda bloomed every spring, and McCree spent long happy hours under it in the years that followed. He practiced his shooting, lay dozing happily under its boughs, watched storms surge and lash the mediterranean from a distance.

And one terrible day, he crashed to his knees at it's base, pushed his forehead to it's trunk and howled for hours like a wounded dog.

Only here had he finally been able to give into the horror and terror that had been twisting inside him like a snared coyote. He'd kept a good face during the horrible, lonely, confused trip from Switzerland. He'd kept a good face since he'd woken up and been quietly, and carefully told what happened. Kept a good face because he was technically some sort of authority figure now, with so many others dead. He'd kept up a good face.

But when he'd returned, alone, to the empty Watchpoint at Gibraltar, he'd clutched the trunk of the jacaranda with his only remaining hand and sobbed his sorry heart out.

Very occasionally in the years after that, he would find a way to visit the Watchpoint that had been his first real home. The cork died between one visit and the next, and in the year after, the larch was felled by one of the lightning storms he'd so loved to watch over the Mediterranean. The juniper rose back up, spreading out as it had before McCree had tamed it. But the jacaranda bloomed every spring, and McCree was grateful for it's endurance, and it's beauty.

Returning to the Watchpoint as a member of the Recall and not a fugitive had been strange. But he'd felt the bone deep relief of being home. Even with the new faces, and old ones, coming in every day, even with the watchpoint having been renovated, added to, and in one area, partially blown up. Winston politely declined to comment about that, but when McCree found his way up to the headland, the jacaranda tree was there.

It was a hot, sticky mid summer day, and the air was still, the blooms from the tree were long gone from the branches. But he walked unhesitatingly up to it, sat down, leant back, tipped his hat over his eyes and fell into the first solid sleep he'd gotten in months.

He woke up in the chill of twilight, wrapped himself in his serape and watched the stars over the mediterranean come out.

"It's Hanzo, ain't it?" McCree held his courage in both hands when he'd approached the quiet, haughty lord. The newest arrival, Genji's brother had arrived looking as sour as goat milk on a hot day. He'd been rigidly polite and correct, so much so it discouraged the others from speaking to him or treating him as an equal. But McCree could spot a newcomer who must be overwhelmed by the life at the Watchpoint, and even loners can't like being left out intentionally. He'd been the same when he'd arrived a lifetime ago.

The archer, resplendent in his silks, impeccably well groomed, made McCree feel all the more like a shabby outlaw, impertinently speaking to his betters. His flat stare wasn't encouraging, but McCree had faced down worse. In his unwavering habit, he intentionally eased his motions and words to a slow, gentle pace. It was a practice that confused some adversaries, relaxed or amused his friends, and helped him think before he spoke.

"Quite a bow you've got," McCree said amiably when no response came from the quiet newcomer. "Never seen one like it."

"You won't again," Hanzo replied.

The tone wasn't exactly curt, or churlish, and too well toned to be blunt, and hadn't been an outright dismissal, and McCree took all of that into account as he went on.

"You any good with it?" McCree went on, in the same easy tone.

Again the flat stare, then Hanzo said, "You must be joking."

McCree grinned. "Let's put it to the test."

He was actually surprised when Hanzo agreed, and pleased when he arrived at the appointed time, on the headland under the summertime leaves of the jacaranda tree.

"These are the targets," McCree held up a bag of yellow rubber duckies.

Hanzo gave the flat remark, "Childsplay." And notched an arrow in his bow.

McCree grinned again. So there was humour in the elegant lord, not just austerity or chilly pride. He stood on the headland and threw six duckies into the bright, summer afternoon air, and they fell away and down before landing, a little bobbing yellow dot, on the dark waters of the Med.

He realized Hanzo was watching him, and McCree grinned at him.

"If you think you can spare the arrows," McCree said, mock gracious in giving Hanzo a chance to bow out.

Hanzo snorted, and the edge of his mouth twitched, and McCree wasn't sure if that would have been a grin on anyone else, but it must have been on Hanzo. He turned to face the bobbing duckies away down on the water, drew the arrow back and fired.

Six arrows out into the sea, and four duckies vanished. Hanzo wordlessly took the bag from McCree, threw six more, and McCree shot after them. Three out of the six. Hanzo got five on his next round, then McCree got six, Hanzo got five again and McCree went down to four. They ran out of duckies to throw, sooner than McCree would have liked.

McCree watched the survivors bobbing away on the tide, too far for him to go after, and shrugged at Hanzo. "Think you can clean any of them up?"

Then Hanzo smirked at him, notched an arrow and pulled back. McCree's heart jumped up his throat, and suddenly, the archers startling beauty, his poise and grace, the well build muscles of his half bare chest and the elaborate tattoo down his left arm... All of it was so beautiful to McCree he would have cursed if he had the breath for it.

Then the air cracked into a wash of light and noise, Hanzo called something in Japanese, and two huge blue dragons erupted out to follow the arrow, spiraling down towards the sea and the little doomed bobbing duckies.

McCree felt just as helpless. His heart was hammering as he stared at Genji's brother. McCree wasn't watching the dragons when they slammed into the water, taking all the duckies with them. He couldn't take his eyes off Hanzo. Couldn't shut his mouth or stop his hammering heart either.

"I win this round," Hanzo said, clearly smug at McCree's reaction.

McCree snapped his mouth shut, and, flustered and breathless as he was, feigned a casual interest and sportsmanlike appreciation. "Sure do. I'll not let you take the next one."

"We shall see," Hanzo barely smirked, accepting McCree's offer to repeat their little contest.

And McCree let out a little shaking breath, and leaned against his jacaranda tree. He hoped to god Hanzo thought his reaction was due to seeing the dragons for the first time, and not from seeing him smiling. Not from the lightning strike realization he'd fallen in love.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter gets NSFW folks, thanks for sticking with me so far.

Hanzo waited.

He was good at waiting, patience didn't come naturally to him, but it was a skill he valued. He sat under the McCree's flowering tree on the headland where they'd met for target practice, for talks, for informal little picnics and watching storms and stars and ships passing in the night. Above him, the tree was is as rapturous in bloom as the sakura trees in his home, but these flowers were strange to him, purple little bells with golden hearts. It gave him some quiet delight, to think of McCree sitting like he did now.

In the blasted courtyard above the Adriatic, McCree had fallen perfectly still and silent, and Mercy had abandoned her place behind Reinhardt, flown to Hanzo and pulled McCree out of his shaking arms. Her Valkyrie technology could heal any wound, rise the dead for a few seconds before they slipped away forever. But McCree had shut his eyes while Hanzo had still held him, whispering out his song, and Mercy couldn't wake him.

Reinhardt was swaying when he returned to the courtyard, and Mei looked as fresh and clear eyed as she had before putting down the last of one of the most dangerous gangs in the world. Reaper and Soldier were a little apart from them, shouting out an argument that Hanzo didn't listen to. It was an old one anyway, Mercy assured him, it wasn't about McCree.

There was nothing, she said, with Reinhardt nodding behind her, to worry about McCree anymore. She cried too, or at least, Hanzo thought she might have.

An hour later when Tracer and Roadhog arrived in the dropship for an emergency evacuation, Hanzo couldn't have been removed from McCree with a spike and hammer. Mercy didn’t try, just let him help her, giving clear, firm directions. She worked on McCree with her sleeves bloody, Valkyrie keeping him alive while Mercy fought to improve his condition. Reinhardt got McCree on board, and Mercy began working on McCree in earnest under the huge projection of the globe with Hanzo beside her.

The others gathered up the last pieces of Sundown, Tracer blinked around the resort with Junkrat, and Reaper and Soldier snarled out their well worn argument and Hanzo didn't barely even noticed.

When they finally took off, Hanzo heard a huge rolling explosion, and looked up in surprise to see the resort blowing up and apart below them. The last home of the Deadlock Gang was going up in fire and smoke, becoming a tomb for those lying dead and unburied. Hanzo glanced automatically at Junkrat, who looked so boyishly wide eyed and innocent that Hanzo instantly thanked him.

Junkrat blinked and then flicked Hanzo a tight, genuine little smile. "Chin up mate, he'll be alright."

McCree had healed back in Gibraltar, while Hanzo sat beside him for hours, leaving to rove the island when he couldn't sleep, only to return to McCree's bedside.

The tree on the headland bloomed, and Hanzo brought flowering boughs to McCree's bedside, and he slept on while Mercy cared for him with a devotion that Hanzo began to realize was actually fervent.

Then he began to notice it in all of the veteran members of Overwatch.

They had believed, for all of the time McCree had been in their lives, that he would betray them. They had never trusted him, and when he seemingly turned, they as much as believed they had seen it coming, and told themselves a kill order was only fitting.

That McCree had protected them from Deadlock with his life the entire time he was with Overwatch was shocking. That he kept the gang alive because he knew they didn't trust him was heartbreaking.

"You knew," Hanzo said, finding Genji alone one sleepless night.

"I knew many things that you do not bother," Genji said, allowing Hanzo to interrupt his meditation. "Be specific."

His little brat of a brother. So jarring after so long without him.

Hanzo settled beside Genji. The two of them looking out at the dark sea, while the moon glided out from between the windy clouds above them.

"Sundown, the mech the Shimada made for Deadlock," Hanzo said, "You knew it's name, it's true name."

Genji hesitated, then reached up and snapped off the catches that held his mask in place. Barefaced, he looked up at the moon. "I did," he said.

"You knew the Shimada were still making the AI mechs. How close were you?" Hanzo had tried to leave this question alone and found he was totally unable to.

"I am close. As close as McCree was with Deadlock. He and I, we both came from crime and into the old Overwatch," Genji paused and looked over to Hanzo.

Bareface, scared as he was and in darkness, Genji’s was was achingly familliar to Hanzo.

"When I became an active agent, I felt the distrust of those around me, but I didn't care. I was angry, so angry, I was like a dog they let off leash when they wanted bodies to fall.” Genji looked away from Hanzo, back up at the moon, “McCree was quiet, patient like you and it made me furious, I was actually scared of him. When I fought with him in training, he would always fight fairly, and never rise to any of my taunting. He understood what I felt, at least a little, and when I let him speak to me, he told me that he used his old gang. He gave me the idea of keeping the Shimada's like he kept the Deadlock Gang, and he helped me."

"You... You used the Clan," Hanzo hadn't felt any loyalty to his clan in years, but it was still a bewilderingly heavy thing to understand about his brother.

"McCree said he kept Deadlock as a farm. Producing money, information, it was his retirement he said, insurance for if Overwatch ever turned on him, or abandoned him. I thought of the Clan as a blind wolfpack, and I the sparrow, watching and leading from above. I thought of taking my revenge on them many times. But I spoke to McCree each time, and each time, he had a better idea. Eventually, I had access to their money, I could intercept or manipulate information, I could find or follow or kill members as I needed to. It was how I found you, finally, after all your years of wandering."

"He asked you for Sundown," Hanzo already knew that, but he wanted Genji to admit it.

"I placed the commission,” Genji said without a trace of embarrassment, as though he hadn’t almost enabled a violent gang to gain a weapon that could have killed his entire organization. “The Shimada function in cells now, and one is years dead. I run it for information. McCree knew that Deadlock was unstable when Keith offered him haven, and if he didn't take them down now, they'd come for us. They'd come for him anyway."

Hanzo nodded. The gang had been terrified of their leader, and would have done anything he ordered. And they would have taken what Keith wanted.

"I didn't know his plan," Genji said, "I just knew that he had one, and that his loyalty was always with us. I was going to follow him and find out what he needed, but when you spoke up, I knew if anyone could bring him back, or save him, it was you."

Hanzo swallowed, and his throat felt far too hot and dry.

"Keith Salt," Hanzo managed. The dead leader of Deadlock Gang, who had stoked McCree's hair back, held his shoulder like he had been property. He forced the name out, and didn't know how to go on.

"Hero worshiped McCree," Genji supplied. "In the old days when McCree ran with them. He made the story in his head that McCree needed to be rescued from Overwatch. He took the gang by killing the old leader, and ran it through violence, killed his own people. But no other leader would have let McCree walk them into the trap he'd set, even if they knew McCree was walking in beside them."

"McCree knew he wouldn't come back," Hanzo said. He felt a stab of agony in his gut saying that, thinking of McCree standing calmly, smiling at Peacekeeper held up at his chest at point blank range. _End of the Line_. "Did you?"

"No,” For the first time, Genji sounded unsure, almost reluctant. “But I suspected. Hanzo, if the positions had been reversed, and you went back to the Shimadas, do you think you could come back and be accepted? McCree knew the others never trusted him."

They sat in silence for a while, both looking up at the moon as it crested one cloud and was engulfed by the next.

"They do now though, finally," Genji said, and his low voice held a tone of anger Hanzo had never heard before.

He looked at his brother, but Genji was already snapping his mask protectively over his face.

"I'm giving the Shimada contacts to Winston and Athena," Genji said. "I wanted to tell you first. The Deadlock gang paid me for Sundown, and the credits are already in Overwatch's accounts. But these are secrets that can cut both ways, and we've suffered enough of them."

"I agree," Hanzo said, and his exhausted honesty, and the heartache and fear and sorrow was enough that Genji thoughtlessly reached out, and rested his hand on Hanzo's shoulder.

Hanzo was surprised to find he hadn't flinched away, then the comfort from his brother impressed itself on him, and bowed his head as he shut his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Genji said after minutes had passed. Then he seemed to hesitate and went on, "Did you know you loved him?"

The question lanced through Hanzo, impaling him where he sat. But of course, Genji would have seen it. Genji had always been keen eyed, he had a navigator's knack for seeing what lay ahead.

"No," Hanzo whispered, "Not until he was dying. I told him."

"I'm sorry," Genji murmured again. "I didn't know why he left his gun. Even if he hadn't had it, Keith would have found another way. And it got you to him, made the others know there was something more than a betrayal."

"I've only ever loved two people," Hanzo finally forced words around something that had been tearing him apart for days. "And I've killed them both."

Genji's hand tightened on his shoulder. "We're neither of us dead, brother."

Hanzo sat silently with his brother for hours that night.

Soldier and Reaper continued to fight, more then usual, and Soldier had rapidly lost his practiced patience in dealing with his former brother in arms. Their fights came to blows more often than not, and Hanzo was largely ignorant of them, focused as he was on McCree's sleeping body, lying in the medical bed.

Lucio sang to him for hours, and Hana came to show off her new video games, exclusive streams, she called it. Tracer visited often, as did Junkrat and Roadhog, which surprised Hanzo, but the two had been strange, if staunch allies. The others all came to visit in their turn. Symmetra made an elegant vase for the flowering tree branches Hanzo had brought. Ana cradled McCree's hand in both of hers, and wept quietly, and without shame, her tears sliding down her face without making a move to brush them away. Torbjorn sat silent for an hour, then heaved a sigh, patted McCree, startled Hanzo by patting him too, and left. Reinhardt cried openly, and Mercy had to bully him into accepting a cup of tea and box of tissues. Winston stayed for hours by McCree's bed, sitting perfectly still, more patient than a human in his quiet, animal grief. Zarya and Mei were surprisingly the most welcome visitors, as Zarya was unwavering in her confidence that McCree would recover, and Mei spoke soft and sweet about her adventures, and told stories that entertained everyone.

A day after their return to Gibraltar, Mercy returned his scarf to him. Hanzo had been shocked when he'd seen it in her hands.

"He had it under his chest plate," She explained.

McCree had kept the scarf hidden, under his chest plate, under his shirt, against the skin over his heart. The bullet Keith had fired had broken through the bulletproof chest plate, and then gone right through the scarf, but silk was tough stuff, and Mercy was grateful it had been there.

"It didn't tear through him," She explained to a queasy Hanzo holding a torn and blood stained strip of gold silk. "Point blank or no, it went through armor, and silk and broke bone that didn't shatter. There was a lot of damage but it wasn't..." She trailed off, looking at Hanzo's stricken face, and left the eager explanation at that.

But time passed. Four days since they had left the east coast of the Adriatic sea with McCree lying still and heavy on the edge of death while the last of the Deadlock Gang exploded behind them.

So Hanzo waited.  

McCree had kept Hanzo's scarf over his heart.

He clenched both his hands around it. Shut his eyes on the golden spring afternoon, and breathed in the scent of the jacaranda blossoms.

"Quite a party down there," McCree's voice, behind him from the top of the trail to the headland.

Hanzo turned and there he was, a little rough on all edges, but moving with the same ambling walk and long limbs. He was wrapped in his serape, though he looked smaller without the chestplate, hat, or chaps.

"I ain't never seen so many crying folks outside a funeral. You'd think I really died. You know how many folks in there have actually been buried? About half of their own number for a start actually. Bit hypocritical for Ana to be crying for one. Reinhardt was crying too. Think Torbjorn too but it’s hard to tell between the eyebrows and the beard."

McCree looked untroubled by his recent injury. He certainly moved easily. He was here, he was alright, and Hanzo couldn't breath.

"Couldn't say they were sorry enough. All soaked in shame Hanzo, it was a sight, made me some uncomfortable to hear so many people say they were wrong. Never heard such praise in my life.” He chattered on, still approaching Hanzo slowly. “Couldn’t have picked a better time to get shot. They couldn't speak highly enough about me. Reaper actually apologized. Can you believe that? Soldier was so surprised he dropped Hana. She had tried to hug me but came in a little hot according to Soldier, going roughly mach 5 when he caught her he said.”

McCree grinned, a little wryly, “He knew, the bastard, he knew I wasn’t giving the right IDs. Right after I gave Ana’s. He heard me give a false ID because he knew hers from finding her last year. And he left it up to you. Some damn nerve that man has. Genji gave me the full breakdown of what happened here on my way up, best believe I left the medical bay as soon as I could. He told me who never doubted me. Heartwarming list, specially with you on it." McCree went on, easily filling the silence with news and chatter.

The afternoon sunshine was bright in McCree's hair, and his arms were bare under the serape, the shirt he wore had been rolled up to the elbows. Really here, and really alright.

"They tell me that might have saved my life," McCree tipped his head at the scrap of bloody silk in Hanzo's hands. "Much obliged."

"Theft isn't usually so rewarded," Hanzo heard himself say.

McCree snorted, “Neither is being a double agent. But things seem to have worked out just fine.” He stopped a few steps away, his head a little to one side, "You're as pretty as a picture under that tree Hanzo."

"Join me," Hanzo set aside the scarf, and reached up as McCree walked into his arms, and dropped down to sit.

They sat chest to chest, their arms around one another, their foreheads pressed close. McCree sat between Hanzo's knees, his long legs draped over Hanzo's hips under the shade of the rampantly flowering jacaranda tree.

"You stayed," Hanzo could feel himself starting to shake. McCree was here, McCree was right here. Wide shoulders and broad chest and long arms and legs. He was scruffy and hairy and heavy and so in love with Hanzo he was ready to die alone to protect him. He was here, he was safe, and he had his hands fisted in Hanzo's clothes, clinging like it would hurt him to let go.

"You promised to keep me," McCree smiled, and nuzzled his face gently into Hanzo's. "You said you loved me, and I thought for sure that had to be a near-death hallucination."

"It wasn't," Hanzo's hands fisted in the red serape. "I am going to keep you."

McCree huffed out a sigh, and the tension Hanzo had noticed promptly drained out of McCree's shoulders. "Well shoot," he whispered, and smiled against Hanzo's mouth.

Hanzo kissed him, as soft as he dared, still unable to believe that he was here, he was real and whole and alright. McCree pushed gently back into him, opened his mouth and smiled into the kiss, sighing with his eyes closed and his arms tight around Hanzo.

They went softly at first, almost shyly, and Hanzo was tentative, aware that McCree had nearly died a few days ago. But McCree persistently pulled him in tighter, let their kisses linger longer, and leaned back easily when Hanzo pushed a little too hard.

"S'all right," McCree whispered, "I'm fine, Hanzo, if you really want me this is the easy part."

Hanzo kissed him to shut him up more than anything, but still burried his face in McCree's neck afterwards, red with embarrassment.

"Don't talk so lightly about this," Hanzo muttered, "This didn't happen easily."

McCree chuckled, and rubbed Hanzo's back, "Sure didn't, but we're both here now. You got me Sunshine, this is the easy part."

He nuzzled Hanzo's cheek, chasing another kiss, and Hanzo gave it, slowly, then leaning into it as McCree caught him, held him. McCree let Hanzo push into him, taste him and suck at his tongue and press him back until McCree was leaning against the jacaranda tree. Hanzo knelt between his spread thighs, and lay up his chest, kissing down into McCree's open mouth.

McCree's hand was in Hanzo's hair now, stroking and holding him, gently pulling him closer, holding him in, letting Hanzo take his time and go slow. Because Hanzo hadn't known he'd wanted this, but now that he did, and he had it, he was thorough.

Hanzo sat up panting a while later, slightly dazed, breathless and open mouthed, looking down at McCree looking back up at him in open, dreamy wonder, mouth open, breathing hard.

"Hanzo," McCree breathed, then for the first time since Hanzo had met him, McCree didn't seem to have a damn thing to say.

"Off," Hanzo tugged at the serape, and Mcree ducked out of it with a breathless little chuckle, and Hanzo went after McCree's shirt next. Before McCree had dropped his serape, Hanzo had McCree's shirt open, pulled from the haphazard tuck into his pants.

McCree's breath caught, and he froze as Hanzo's hands rested flat on his chest, framing the scar, in the centre of a little hairless spot on his chest. Hanzo felt the muscles under the soft, hairy skin tense.

"You kept my scarf," Hanzo murmured, still almost unable to believe it, "Right here."

"Yeah," McCree let out a breath, "Selfish to take it, didn't think I'd see you again after that, couldn't let you go."

"I should have..." Hanzo trailed off, because there was a lot he’d done and not done. And McCree still managed to save the day.

McCree sat up, crowding up into Hanzo's space, gathering him into his arms so their faces were close again. "It ain't your fault, none of it. I'm sorry, it was so much on you. Selfish of me again."

Hanzo stroked his hands up over McCree's chest, combing through chest hair before he brought his hands under the shoulders of McCree's shirt, and tugged it down his arms.

McCree grinned, ducking his face into Hanzo's neck, and obliged him by lowering his arms, and holding them back so Hanzo could slide his shirt off.

"Better?" McCree swallowed as Hanzo stroked down McCree's sides again and shivered. "Hey, this might surprise you but I'm a little ticklish so..."

Hanzo snorted with laughter and chased McCree's face up, and kissed his grinning mouth. He pressed McCree back down on to the open serape, over the loose flannel shirt, and McCree went easily, pulled Hanzo down after him and held him, both arms wrapped tight, his knees bent with Hanzo lying between them.

The warmth of McCree's skin was almost shocking as Hanzo stroked over McCree's chest, and he settled lower, lying up McCree's body, until their hips pressed together. McCree let out a long, shaking sigh, and for the first time, pulled away, only slightly, from the kiss. Hanzo leaned back at once, but McCree caught him before he got too far.

"Listen, are you gonna think me shameless if I tell you I brought condoms and lube when I came to find you?" McCree said in a breathless little rush.

And Hanzo's skin went hot, and automatically, thoughtlessly, tipped his hips into McCree’s.  

"Take that as a no," McCree purred, a little hitch in his voice.

"Prudent," Hanzo said, a little breathless. “For once,” He added automatically.”

McCree bit his lip and reached down, grabbing Hanzo's ass and pulling their hips hard together.

"Very prudent," Hanzo gasped, his eyes shutting and McCree gave a quiet little laugh, and leaned up a little to kiss him.

Their kisses had gotten hotter, going messy and fast and Hanzo wasn't sure when that had started, but he was pawing at McCree's bare chest and sides now. Their hips were grinding together hard and slow and McCree's hands were huge and Hanzo hadn't really appreciated that before. But now they were squeezing his ass and pulling him against the hard line of McCree's dick.

It was hot in the late afternoon sunshine and his hair trailed around both their faces, hiding them from the world and Hanzo was going to fucking keep his scruffy, brave, clever, outlaw, for as long as McCree stayed with him or until they were both dead. Because this was going to happen again. Hanzo felt drunk with happiness and relief and McCree wanted him, and Hanzo was never letting go of that.

Hanzo sat up abruptly, pawing at the guard on his right arm, "Off," he muttered, "Help me."

Flushed and sweaty and smiling with bright bruised lips, McCree sat up, and helped him shed the guard and glove.  Then with a shrug, Hanzo's yukata fell down his arm his hands already busily opening his belts, then a touch on his arm stopped him.

"You kept it," McCree breathed. He was staring at the arrow head, tied just above Hanzo's elbow, where no one had seen it.

Hanzo stopped, and gently tugged at McCree's beard, pulling his face around to look at him. "I knew you believed I couldn't hurt you," Hanzo said.

McCree's mouth was open a little in amazement, and he smiled suddenly. "Thought it was foolish of me, giving it back to you, realized afterwards you had hundred of the damn things. But that one mattered to me."

"Me too," Hanzo stroked his fingers through McCree's beard, and let McCree carefully untie the leather cord and set the arrow head aside.

"Don't you get cold darlin'?" McCree asked, running his hands up Hanzo's bare arms. His hands were hot, and Hanzo just smiled. He shut his eyes and went back to undoing his belts as McCree's warm hands traced almost reverently over the lines of his shoulders and chest.

"The zeal for my calling burns within me for warmth," Hanzo deadpanned, and McCree laughed, really laughed, and let his forehead come to rest against Hanzo's shoulder.

Hanzo smiled, and nuzzled into McCree's hair, and the belts came free and and his entire yukata slid away from them.

"This ridiculous thing," Hanzo murmured, both hands going to the BAMF belt buckle.

"It ain't wrong," McCree said easily. "Took out a whole gang without firing a shot."

"And yet, one less shot would have been better," Hanzo unbuckled McCree's belt, and flipped the button open.

"I'll keep that in mind," McCree said, struggling to speak as his breath hitched, "Christ Hanzo." he broke off, turning his face into Hanzo's neck.

Hanzo had his forehead against McCree's shoulder, looking down between them, both of them leaning into each other. His hands were busy, pulling open the folds of McCree's clothing. McCree's dick was hot and hard and straining back up towards him, and Hanzo found he was panting slightly, still on his knees but rising up, pushing McCree back again. McCree's hands were gentle at Hanzo's sides, shaking slightly from the effort of not gripping tighter.

"Where," Hanzo managed to say. McCree's dick was in his hands, both hands, because McCree was characteristically more than Hanzo had expected. It was rapidly prompting him to come to a couple of decisions that were making it hard to think of anything else.

McCree let out a shaking sigh, nuzzled his face into Hanzo's neck and ferreted a bottle and a foil packet from his jeans pocket.

"Prudent," Hanzo said again, with more fervour this time, and spared one hand from McCree's dick to pull at the ties on his own pants.

"Wait," McCree's face flushed hot against Hanzo's neck, "You don't have to, I mean, I'm kinda... Hanzo please you could fuck me against this tree every day for the rest of our lives and that would be more than I could ask for."

"I'm asking for more," Hanzo said, pulling the catches off his leg guards and shedding them in one impatient motion, "A lot more, if you'll permit me."

"Oh, of course, yes, god yes," McCree sounded winded, and he helped Hanzo free his boots, and pants and underclothes.

Then he pulled back slightly, and Hanzo was naked and hard and panting slightly between his thighs and McCree cursed so vehemently and breathlessly, that Hanzo was oddly flattered.

"Use your hand," Hanzo shifted, moving to straddle McCree's thighs and tug at the hand with the bottle of lube.

"Don't let me hurt you," McCree said with so much force Hanzo looked up from busily soaking McCree's hand in lube, and stare at him full in the face.

Hanzo kissed McCree, impulsive and hard and quick and McCree let the kiss bully him back down, and Hanzo felt the tension slid out of his wide chest. "You would never," Hanzo breathed against McCree's lips, "Ever hurt me."

They stayed like that for a while shaded and sheltered by the jacaranda tree. McCree leaning back, eyes closed and mouth open. Hanzo lay straddling his hips, their bare chests together, kissing down into him. He pinned him back while his stroked at McCree's sides, clutching at him as he ground their hips together, their dicks slick with lube and pressed between them.

McCree went slow, slipping his fingers one at a time into Hanzo with the care and attention of a devotee at shrine.

"Please McCree," Hanzo gasped, his open mouth panting against McCree's and rocking back against his hand. It ground them closer, and between their bellies, McCree's soft and hairy, Hanzo's cut and bare, their dicks were painfully hard and crying.

"Slow," McCree insisted. But he fucked his fingers a little harder, and deeper the next time Hanzo rocked his body into them.

Hanzo lost track of time, but McCree held him like that, his right fingers stretching Hanzo open, reaching deeper, pressing up inside him until he found a spot that made Hanzo cry out and shake every time McCree touched him.

"Sunshine," McCree purred, "You're doing good, so good my beautiful darlin'."

Hanzo turned his face into McCree's neck, but the praise, the endearments and the soft, insistent purring voice told him over and over that McCree loved him.

"I know," Hanzo gasped, the dragons were awake inside him again, hungry and reaching and shifting. "Please McCree."

"Right, easy though, please darlin go easy," McCree helped Hanzo sit up, rolled a condom over his dick with both trembling hands and slicked himself up again.

Hanzo pushed himself up, and reached behind him for McCree's dick, and brought the blunt head against his slick hole.

"Easy," McCree said, soft and slow as a prayer.

Hanzo had one hand on McCree's chest, and could feel his heart thudding against his palm. He managed to draw out another couple of curses from McCree as he sank down the long, wide length of his dick.

"You were the one that said this was the easy part," Hanzo was breathless and smug and there was still about a third of McCree's dick to go and he was looking forward to it.

McCree groaned, his hands were trembling on Hanzo's thighs. "I wasn't wrong but Hanzo, I may have underestimated my own self, can't hardly..." And he broke off as Hanzo began to move.

More bitten off curses from McCree, some so patently incomprehensible they must have been saved for truly special occasions. Hanzo raked his fingers through McCree's chest hair and traced the edges of his scars.  McCree's right hand stroked Hanzo's dick in time to his rocking, then stopped, and McCree's hands had reached up to squeeze his pecs with such notable reverence Hanzo gave a breathless little laugh.

"How long have you wanted to do that?" Hanzo gasped without breaking rhythm.

"Sunshine, I ain't gonna count the months back just now, but it's been a while," McCree panted back.

They both grinned, and Hanzo leaned down, and McCree leant up, and they met in the middle for a kiss that went soft and lazy and sloppy as Hanzo fucked himself down onto McCree against their tree and the sun began to set.

McCree brough Hanzo off first, something which surprised Hanzo, and delighted McCree. Hanzo was caught off guard, focusing on McCree, lost to time or place, basking in the heat of the heavy, trembling, living-breathing-real-safe body beneath him. Then McCree stroked him, hard and fast and it was the first time he'd used his metal hand. Hanzo gasped, but it was so exquisitely gentle that he lost his grip completely and cried out, coming abruptly and rearing up, rocking his hips down until McCree was buried in him to the hilt.

McCree's hands held him at the waist, cradling him as he came with McCree's dick hard inside him, his back arched, head back, shaking with his hands clinging to McCree's arms. The dragons roared inside him, twisting frantically, their light shining from his tattoo, hunger sated and savagely triumphant.

"Goddamn." He heard McCree breathe.

He left his jizz painting the hair on McCree's belly, and he felt his body softening, and then McCree had sat up cradling him against his chest, and reached down, cupping Hanzo's ass and grinding gently up into him.

"Yes," Hanzo shut his eyes and shuddered, mouthing blindly against McCree's collar bone. "More, McCree."

"Hanzo you're the best damn thing that's ever wore me out," McCree breathed, and his hands tightened, squeezing Hanzo's ass in both hands as he fucked up into Hanzo's warm, soft body.

Half on impulse, Hanzo turned his head and bit into the junction of McCree's shoulder and neck. Then he knew he'd guessed right when McCree abruptly startled, his body losing strength for a second then clutching Hanzo to him as he came.

Hanzo coaxed him through it, guiding him back gently to lean against their tree, until they lay panting together, still joined, sticky, hot and sweaty, totally slack with contentment.

McCree made a small moan behind his teeth when he finally managed to move enough to gingerly pull out of Hanzo, taking the condom with him and tying it one handed. Then in a display of endurance that impressed the drowsy Hanzo, managed to shift them both enough so Hanzo was lying full length over McCree.

They lay on a nest of discarded clothes, and McCree pulled the red, soft wool of the serape over them both.

"I'll keep you," Hanzo promised, dozing but needing to get to point across.

"I'll stay," McCree replied. Under the serape, he stroked his left hand down the length of Hanzo's back.

A minute later, Hanzo realized he was half asleep draped over McCree's chest, and shifted to lie beside him. McCree's arms caught him and held him in place.

"You're going to smother," Hanzo insisted, not putting up much of a fight. McCree was very warm, and extremely comfortable.

"Hold me down," McCree said, and the words were soft, but very earnest.

Hanzo nodded and they lay like that until they could open their eyes. Then they lay and watched the sky fill with soft colours as the sun set. They lay with their arms around one another, their hearts beating in time, until he stars came out, and then they reluctantly began sorting their clothes apart, going by feel more than anything. Wool and flannel for McCree, silk and linen for Hanzo.

They left the softly sighing boughs of their tree, and together, picked their way down the trail back to the Watchpoint, and home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for staying with me all the way through this, I hope you enjoyed it. I love these boys and I had a great time with them <3 thank you for reading, I love you. <3


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